Shattered
by aliena wyvern
Summary: Johanna Helen Watson is born with a brown mark on her wrist. "So, this is the Burglar", it says, and even before she is old enough to learn how to read, she wonders what it means. Sherlock!AU, Soulmates, fem!Bilbo.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello! This is my first attempt to write in English so forgive me if there are any mistakes!**  
 **It's basically a reincarnation story. Fem!Bilbo is fem!John, Smaug is Sherlock, and Thorin is Sebastian Moran.**  
 **You can find pictures on my Tumblr (alienawyvernfanfiction dot tumblr dot com)** **and a video on my Youtube channel(watch?v=xJjjmzPdS2s &feature=youtube_gdata_player).**  
 **The story is also posted on AO3.**

 **Cover art is mine.**

 **The soulmate!AU belongs to Resacon1990 who allowed me to use it (thanks to you :)**  
 **Check this amazing story, I've been looking for you.**

Chapter 1

Johanna Helen Watson is born with a brown mark on her wrist.

 _So, this is the burglar_ , it says, and even before she's old enough to learn how to read, she wonders what it means.  
She doesn't understand, at first, why all the adults, even the teachers at the beginning if the schoolyear, think or say that she is a poor little girl, why they all look at her with pity, as if she was some weird abnormality. She doesn't need to be a genius to realize it has something to do with her peculiar mark.

Everyone around her, her parents, her sister Harriet, her classmates, absolutely averyone, have bright red marks. Grandma has a black one, and when little Johanna asks her mother why, she answers that it's because Grandpa is dead. Many old persons have black marks, she discovers. There are also two boys, in another class, who share everything, including matching green marks. Her uncle has a green one too.  
But hers...

Hers is written in a dirty brown that looks like mud.  
She doesn't like looking at it. The other children don't like it either.  
 _You are a freak_ , they say, and she bends her head and hides it under her sleeve, and she wonders why she can't be like the others and have a normal mark. She doesn't make friends, and pretends she doesn't care.

She is eight when she finally understands, when the teacher, at school, explains the marks and their meaning, and her whole life is shattered in the blink of an eye.  
The mark is the only way to recognize the other half of one's soul.  
The words are the firsts one is supposed to hear when they meet them.  
And the colour determines what kind of relationship they are supposed to share once they've find them.  
It sounds simple and marvelous, to have somewhere in the world a soulmate waiting for you.  
But it's not.

Red words are for a romantic bond.  
Green means a platonic one, and black means that the bond is ended because of death.  
Purple is a familial bond and blue is an unrequited one.  
In the classroom, one of the girls starts crying, because she has a yellow mark, and it means that the words that are shining like gold on her wrist are the last she will ever hear. For the first time in her life, Johanna is glad of her own brown mark.  
Pink means a sensual bond only.  
Grey, and the teacher's lips twitch when she says it, is for sexual only.  
It doesn't feel that bad, but all the children snort, and two of them turn bright red.

 _And a brown one?_ Johanna asks shyly, and all the heads turn toward her and it makes her feel terribly small and alone under their unforgiving gaze, because they look at her the way they would look at a monkey in a zoo. The only thing they see is the freak, whose mark is so unnatural. She feels trapped.  
The teacher looks at her with pity, again, and clears her throat, Her voice is soft and apologetic when she answers, and eight-years old Johanna doesn't cry, because that's what they are all waiting for, holding their breath, eyeing her like a prey. They will laugh, and she doesn't want to hear their laughter. Doesn't want to give them what they want.  
Yet, she is just a little girl, and when the teacher, knowingly or not, metaphorically takes her little heart in her hand and crushes it in thousands of pieces with her implacable words, she wants nothing more than to scream and sob and run far, far away from them and their taunting gazes. But she doesn't, and her eyes stay dry as the explaination seems to burn like poison in her wrist.

 _A brown mark means a severed bond.  
_  
 _Okay_ , she says with a weak, yet firm voice.  
She doesn't need to hear more.  
But it's a lie and she knows it. She is not okay. She never will be.

 _Belladona Baggins, daughter of the very respectable Bungo Baggins of Bag End and of the not-so-respectable Belladona Took, is born with a bright scarlet mark.  
_  
 _Maybe it is a bit too bright, like if someone has carved it with a knife in her flesh, a wound that never healed, and some may take it as a bad omen, but she's quite satisfied with it. After all, it means that she indeed has a soulmate, in a romantic way, and Lobelia Bracegirdle can say whatever she wants, that she is a disgrace on the family, that she sould behave like a proper lady instead of running out into the fields, wearing boy's clothes and her hair short, and coming back muddy, dirt-streaked and scratched, it won't change the fact that she knows she has someone who is the other half of herself and that she just has to find them.  
_  
So, this is the Burglar _, the mark says, and her parents fear that this is a proof of irrespectability or future misbehaving, but Belladona, or Bilbo, because it's shorter and suits her, even if she sometime acts like a tomboy, never steals anything._ _She doesn't even try to steal Farmer Maggot's mushrooms, like every fauntling in the Shire does, or perhaps just once, not because it is not proper, or because of his dogs, but because she fears being caught, and she fears Farmer Maggot says the words, and she really, really doesn't want Farmer Maggot to be her soulmate.  
_  
 _She doesn't steal, she doesn't become a burglar, but all her childhood is spent in running and running, meeting imaginary elves and slaying imaginary foes with a wooden sword, and going on adventures that never go further than Bree, and she dreams of the day she'll be old enough to go on a real one with her famous mother, because she is young and joyful and innocent.  
_  
 _She also knows everyone in the Shire, every boy, every girl, and she knows that none of them is her soulmate. The day she goes with her mother, the day she crosses the borders of her green and bright country, this day will be the one she meets her other half. She knows it._ _So she waits and waits and when she thinks this day has finally come, the Fell Winter happens and everything changes._

 _Bungo is out in the snow for wood and everything is silent in the smial and the red mark on her mother's wrist suddenly turns black and she screams, and Bilbo doesn't understand, not until the rangers bring back what is left of her father. Not much.  
_  
 _Her mother doesn't last long after that. She fades slowly, rots alive and turns to a shadowy ghost who can't even recognize her own daughter in the end.  
_  
 _Bilbo is left alone in a cold, empty smial full of memories and everytime she looks at her red mark, she fears to see that it has suddenly turned black. She prays the Green Lady and swears that when she finally meets her soulmate, she won't lose him, or her, or whatever they are. S_ _he swears, with all her young, innocent heart._

 _Many, many years later, when she is old and bitter and desillusioned and broken-hearted, she will laugh at her own foolishness, but for now, she doesn't know it and her mark is still bright red and seems to shine with happiness on her wrist, like a promise signed in blood._

One isn't usually born with a brown mark. It happens when one of the soulmates decides to remove his mark or end the bond, in case of unrequited feelings or polyamorous relationship because one doesn't want to choose, but no one is ever born like this.

It is not normal, and that's the burden Johanna has to carry. Even if she is only Johanna on her identity cards. She goes by _John_ , actually, because if Harriet decides to call herself _Harry_ , why wouldn't she do the same?

Johanna was a bullied little girl who was forced to move in another school, and in this new school no one knows she has a brown mark amd hopefully no one will know. John is not a bullied little girl. John is not a freak. John is strong, and hardened, and she still doesn't cry. John is not frightened.  
Fourteen-year-old John H. Watson is _angry_.

She is angry at her parents, because they obviously knew their daughter had a severed bond, because all grown-ups know these sort of things, and never told her, she is angry because instead of simply talking with her when she learned about the meaning of her mark, they sent her to a therapist, and she is angry because when nineteen years old Harry meets her soulmate, she is forced to leave the house because their parents can't accept the fact that their perfect, beautiful, clever eldest daughter is gay.

She is angry at Harry for leaving her in a home that doesn't feel like home anymore, with parents that can't even look at her in the eyes without feeling guilty.

She is not, however, angry at Clara. Harry's soulmate is smart, funny, and acts as if John was normal. That's enough for her.

She is angry at her therapists because they always repeat the same things, that she's going be alright, that all hope is not lost, that she can still find someone, someone who will be as broken as her. She hates these people who think they know better, and only make it worse. She doesn't want another broken being to share her life with. She wants a soulmate, like everyone else, and she knows she will never have and that makes her even more angry.

She is angry at her soulmate because for an unknown reason, they decided they didn't wanted her, before she even existed. She wonders if one can hate someone they never met, never knew. She doesn't know if she can. Anger is easier, but she can't keeps it for herself, and one day she knows she will snap and she wonders how much she can take before it happens.

And it happens.

One day a boy from her previous school comes and laughs at her and calls her freak and immediately the whole school is aware of her brown mark, and that John H. Watson will never have a soulmate, because said soulmate actually never wanted her.  
And she sees red and punches him in the face. Again. And again, until she feels his bones break under her fists, and he retaliates, but she doesn't feel the pain. Just the anger.  
She ends up with a black eye, a bleeding nose and a few twisted fingers, and the satisfaction to know that she will have to move in another school, _again_ , and that the boy is missing three teeth and that his nose is broken and will likely never return to its original shape, but the anger is still here.

In the car that drives her home, her parents are silent.  
Her mother sighs.  
 _We know it's hard, Johanna_ , she says. _We know it's hard._  
 _No, you don't_ , John thinks. _You know nothing._  
Because on both of her parents' wrist is a bright, taunting red mark.

And the therapists come again. She does their exercises, and speaks when they asks her to, and nothing changes, because despite what they say, that she can't possibly miss or even love someone she never met, the only thing she wants is to tell them to fuck off, because she knows him.

 _Her soulmate._

She dreams of him, since since she knows he has given up on her.  
She dreams of fire and stars and moon and thundering of iron, of green hills and mighty mountains and dark, bottomless caverns, of endless hoards of gold and blood-streaked snow, of battle cries and great ships disappearing in the evening's sun, and in her dreams he is always here.

She can never remember his face when she wakes up. There was a time she would always try to draw him, and never could. But she knows he has blue eyes.  
And she curses him because despite her shit-colored mark, he still torments her.

She wonders if he has got a brown mark too.  
She asks him once, in dream.  
He never answers.

Fourteen years old is the beginning of the end of all hopes, because around her, everyone start to find their soulmates, and she is left alone. She decides to stop trying to do as if she was like them.

John H. Watson cuts her sandy blond hair short, wears dirty jeans and ugly sweaters, and signs up in a rugby club. She is a tomboy and decides she likes it. Her mother disapprove but doesn't say anything, because the therapists are whispering in her ear, about brown marks and broken hearts, oblivious parents and slashed wrists.  
Apparently, rugby is good for her personal developpement, as is clarinet, because she can't always choose her activities because they annoy her parents.  
John hears the whispers and if she thinks of killing herself, she doesn't tell anyone, nor does she takes this step. She wants to live, even for a little while.

Fourteen-year-old John wonders what she did to deserve this.  
She asks her soulmate in her dreams.  
He vanishes without a word.

 _When Bilbo Baggins finally meets her soulmate, she doesn't know what to think. She only knows something is wrong._  
 _She is fifty, and that's old enough in the Shire to be considered a spinster. Most of the Hobbits are married and have chi  
ldren in the few years following their coming of age, and yet Bilbo Baggins, _Mad Baggins _, as they have started to call her when they think she isn't listening, is still living alone in her much too big smial._  
 _It's not proper and she knows it, but that's the only unproper thing she allows herself to do, alongside with wearing trousers and smoking Longbottom Leaf. But she isn't running anymore, and the farthest she's been in twenty years is Hobbiton's market and it only happens twice a week.  
_  
 _The suitors have gradually stopped knocking to her door, mostly because one of them, certainly the most annoying, has had an unpleasant encounter with a frying pan. She prefers it like this._ _Alone, but unbothered, and that's priceless. None of them was her bloody soulmate, and they were as interested in her money as Lobelia, now Sackville-Baggins, in her silverware.  
_  
 _She lives alone, with her books and her memories, and that's enough, even if sometimes, her childish dreams take her and makes her wonder if she must start breaking into the houses and stealing things and hopefully getting caught to finally meet her other half, before she is old and grey and unable to do it._  
You've given up _, says the nasty little voice in her head._  
 _She doesn't bother arguing.  
_  
 _She settles in her boring and safe life in which nothing ever happens, and she is happy with it._  
 _That's why the whole business with Gandalf and twelve scary, dirty, noisy dwarves invading her house at night, empying her pantry, and shamelessly defiling the whole smial is completely and utterly unexpected._  
Dwalin, Balin, Fili, Kili, Ori, Nori, Dori, Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Gloin, Oin.  
 _What a mess.  
_  
 _She starts asking herself if a dwarvish skull is thick enough to resist a powerful blow of her faithful frying pan without exploding when the fifth knock on her green door is heard._  
He's here _, says Gandalf with a dramatic tone, and she wonders how many times she can strike him before he retaliates and disembowls her with her staff._ _She doesn't, because she is a proper Hobbit maid and proper Hobbit maids don't beat their guests. Instead, she opens her door._  
Bilbo Baggins, allow me to introduce the leader of our Company, Thorin Oakenshield.

 _The thirteenth Dwarf,_ not another one _, she mutters under her teeths, is tall, broad-shouldered, short bearded, with a long mane of silver-streaked black hair and striking blue eyes._  
 _He terrifies her._  
So, this is the Burglar _, he says in a low rumble that makes her shivering, barely looking at her, and her whole, perfect little world falls apart._

John signs up in the Army after her medicine studies. Johanna H. Watson, _Fiftth Northumberland Fusiliers_. Why the army? Well, at least, if her whole existence is pointless, she can give it a goal. And it didn't take her long to realize that she needs, craves action like nothing else. She doesn't know why.  
She doesn't feel young anymore.

Her studies have been chaotic.  
Clara and Harry's marriage has been chaotic.  
 _Everything_ has been chaotic.

Harry drinks, and Clara is heroic and copes as best as she can. But John knows it won't be forever. John tries to drink too, but alcohol doesn't ease the pain, it just dulls it, then makes it worst, and she stops as quick as she started.

She tries to get laid and it's better. At least, she feels wanted, desired, and it feels good. She knows she doesn't look bad. Blond and green-eyed and curvy, yet strong. It doesn't matter if people think she is a slut. It doesn't matter she closes her eyes when she is in bed with someone, because even of she wants to hurt her soulmate, her nameless, faceless, cursed soulmate, to show him that there are people who still want her, she still feels like betraying him.  
It doesn't matter.

 _Three-Continent Watson_ , they call her in the Army. It doesn't matter. It's still better than being called a freak. At least, that's what she keeps telling herself. She wears a strap around her wrist and when people asks her about it, she tells them her soulmate is dead, and that she can't bear looking at it.

Her studies have been brilliant.  
She becomes a British Army Doctor.  
Her military carrier is brilliant as well.  
It takes her ten hears to become _Captain_ John Watson of the Northumberland Fusiliers. And during ten years she learns how to save a life and she learns how to take one.  
She throws up the first time she kills a man and sees his head exploding. It never happens again.

She dreams of battles at night, but instead of her gun and the sunburnt landscapes of Afghanistan and the human beings she shoots every day, she has a sword and it's snowing and she's killing faceless monsters and the snow is red and she's searching for him and she can't find him and there's so much blood and she knows it's too late.  
 _Is that why?_ she screams, her voice drowning in the sound of iron against iron, crushed bones and anguished cries. _Is that why?_ _Is that because I couldn't save you?_  
He still never answers.

And she wakes up and kills and save lives and kills again and again and again and it's never enough. The smell of blood is always in her nostrils and her hands are red, red, red, and in the end she even stops trying to wash them. There's only adrenalin in her veins, the only thing she lives for, that and the Queen and Great Britain, and she can never get enough of it. The last thrill she has yet to experience is death, and it takes its time to come. She fights and she forgets about her broken bond and her missing soulmate, her empty life and the hole in her chest that seems to get bigger every day.

She fights until she can't fight anymore, and it doesn't matter, and it still doesn't matter when she feels the bullets hitting her before hearing the thunder of the rifle, and _God, it hurts,_ but it still doesn't matter.

She's falling and falling and _falling_ and the taste of her own blood and of the Afghan dirt on her lips feels strangely exhilarating.

In ten years, she hasn't had the time to realize how tired she is. Until now. Maybe it's time to sleep, and maybe this time she won't dream.

 _At last_ , she thinks, and she lets the darkness swallow her.

 **to be continued...**

 **The meaning of the marks:**  
 **Green - Platonic**  
 **Red - Romantic**  
 **Black - Ended because of death**  
 **Purple - Family**  
 **Blue - Unrequited**  
 **Yellow - Soulmates words are the last ones you ever hear**  
 **Pink - Sensual only**  
 **Grey - Sexual only**  
 **Brown - Severed**  
 **None - No bond, or possibly bonded to a person with a vocal disability**

 **Next chapter: Sherlock, season 1.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Leafpool16985, MissKim2b, asamifangirl0973, MagicalMercenary and Thermelia for following or favoriting this story!  
I own nothing. Everythin belongs to Tolkien, Jackson, Moffat and Gatiss, and the soulmate!AU to Resacon1990.**

 **Pour ceux qui me lisent en français, je pars en vacances demain et si j'aurais accès à internet et que je pourrais toujours reviewer, je ne sais pas si je pourrais avoir un ordinateur pour updater, donc ne vous affolez pas si un chapitre n'arrive pas, je ferais de mon mieux.**

Chapter 2

She doesn't die.

John wakes up in a hospital, thousands of miles from where she fell, and she doesn't know if she is disappointed or not.  
She feels boneless, lying there on her metallic bed like a dead fish. She feels weak and everything hurts. When she tries to get up, she fails. This is annoying. She feels like she doesn't live in her own body anymore.

There is a huge, spidery scar on her shoulder, and lifting an arm, at the beginning, is a torture, but at least the pain makes her feel alive.  
They missed the heart by inches.  
 _Damn it.  
_  
She tries to get up again and this time it works, bit she limps pityfully around the hospital room until the nurse forces her to lie down.  
They give her sedatives, tell her she has to rest. She doesn't want to. If she rests, she will feel dead.  
And in the end, it's almost the same.

PTSD. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, they say. That's were the limp comes from. Not even from a bullet. She finds it humiliating.  
She is crippled, and for the British Army, she is useless. A living corpse.  
Discharged from service.  
Reformed.

They give her a medal in a small box, with a proper ceremony, and she buries it under tons and tons of socks, where she will likely forget it and never look at it again.  
The Army will pay her the therapy, and nothing more.

Harry comes to see her and she's clearly drunk and cries and cries and cries and does nothing else. Clara comes to retrieve her, says she is sorry, and that they are going to divorce. She cries too, and John doesn't, and she feels like a monster, but she can't. All her tears have been shed a long time ago, and she is to tired for that.

Her wound heals well but the limp does not.  
Her therapist's name is Ella and she is nice, but as useless as all the countless others she saw all other the years.  
John doesn't bother talking, during their sessions. They just sit and stare at each other, and she likes it this way.

Ella wants her to write a blog, she says it will help. She finds it ridiculous.  
 _Hi, my name is John H. Watson, former soldier of Her Majesty, my life is a complete wreckage since I was born, my soulmate seems to think I'm not worth it, and nothing ever happens to me. How are you?_

 _Do you so much want to die?_ Ella asks one day, and she stares at the rain through the window and never answers.

When she is fit enough to leave the hospital, they give her a walking stick as a departure gift, and she doesn't know if she must feel grateful or offended.  
Harry is waiting outside with the car, eyes red and puffy, and they still don't speak because there is nothing left to say. But her sister's mark is still bright red, which means there is still hope. If she just stopped drinking, Clara would surely come back running.  
Good luck with that.

Harry gives her a phone and some money and drops her in London, and she feels completely and utterly lost. The city is huge and noisy and feels foreign, because she is used to the Afghan sun and sand and dirt now, and she misses it.

She owns nothing but a suitcase full of clothes, a meaningless medal and a borrowed computer, her walking stick, and her gun, and is left alone in a small hotel room, a crippled, useless former Army Doctor, not even good enough to get killed properly.  
She feels lost. She feels old and used, and the walking stick doesn't help.  
She stares at the ceiling and feels like the walls are crumbling to crush her under their weight.

She's afraid of falling asleep because when she does, she still dreams of battle and fire and blood on the snow and death and of her fucking soulmate she can never save. Sometimes, she is in Afghanistant again, and he is the one who shoots her. She still cannot see his face, and she wakes up screaming because it hurts.

And when she wonders why she hasn't put a bullet in her brain yet, because the gun is there, in the drawer, and she just has to put it in her mouth and pull the trigger, nobody's here to answer her.

She wanders and limps all around the city, stares at her computer screen for hours without writing anything and drinks a lot of coffee.  
She stares at the gun, too, but she doesn't touch it.  
 _Nothing ever happens to me._  
The personal blog of Captain John H. Watson is left hopelessly empy.  
And then...

Then she meets Sherlock Holmes and everything changes.

 _Thorin Oakenshield is a complete and utterly hopeless arsehole._

 _That's Bilbo conclusion after two days on the road in the company of his majestic and grumpy self._  
 _Why on Arda does it have to be him?_

 _He spends half his time scolding at her and complaining about every single thing she does, and the other half glaring dagger as if he wanting to pierce her like a strainer with his cold eyes._  
 _It's annoying._

 _The other Dwarves aren't actually that bad._  
 _Balin is just an old nice grandfather, scary Dwalin is a big softie. Ori knits and draws, Dori fusses like a mother hen, and Nori the thieving little bugger gave her back everything he stole from her when he heard about Lobelia and Bilbo's silverware. Bofur is joyful and funny even when he doesn't want to, Bifur...well Bifur is a bit frightening at first and he doesn't speak a word of the Common Tongue, but he carves very nice trinkets, and Bombur is a great cook. Oin is deaf but caring, Gloin has a wife and a son he can't get enough speaking. The two princes, Fili and Kili, are adorable and even cuddly, in their own way, and she can't believe it when they tell her that they are actually thirty years older than her._  
 _They are dirty, noisy, ill-mannered, they are...well, Dwarves, but she comes to care for them.  
_  
 _The problem is the majestic, royal, hairy prat who is constantly and willingly a constant pain in her arse, and who infortunately happpens to be her soulmate._  
 _Prince, without a doubt._  
 _Charming, to be discussed.  
_  
Your pride will be your downfall _, an upset Gandald says.  
_  
 _Yes, Thorin is proud, even more stubborn than most of his kin, ruthless and broody, even if his table manners are rather correct._  
 _He never laughs, he never jokes, he never smiles. Well, he does sometimes, but his rare smiles belong to his nephews. When they aren't behaving like fauntlings._

The whole incident with the trolls is their fault, not hers, and yet Thorin scolds the Burglar and looks like he is going to eat her alive.

 _She wants to hate him with all her heart, and she can't, which is very frustrationg. In fact, Bilbo Baggins is fairly unable to hate anyone at this time._  
 _It is much, much later that she learns what_ hatred _is, and she finds it so easy it astonishes her.  
_  
 _But then she learns about Erebor and Smaug and Thror and Thrain and Azog and the goldsickness and Azanulbizar and_ Frerin _, and she finds hard to be angry with him, because she knows that in his place, she would have been broken a long time ago. And Bilbo Baggins is not innocent enough to not know what loss is._  
 _She understands it well.  
_  
 _Thorin Oakenshield is an arsehole, with reasons to be one._  
 _And she is in love with him._  
 _It's not that kind of love, with flowers and butterflies and rainbows everywhere, but it os love nonetheless.  
_  
 _Not knowing about his opinion on the matter is rather frightening._  
 _She's been told that finding your soulmate is light being stricken by thunder._ _None of that happened with Thorin. He just said the world and everything was wonderful and then he called her a_ grocer _and the charm broke and that was it._  
 _No sparks, no shiver, no recognition in his beautiful blue eyes. It's like nothing has ever happened, and she doesn't understand why._  
 _Her mark is bright red, not blue, so it is unthinkable that her feelings are unrequited. And yet, nothing._  
 _He must know. He_ has to _.  
_  
 _Or perhaps he does not. After all, Dwarves are so different than Hobbits. Perhaps they don't have soulmates._  
 _Which is an absurd theory, she discovers, because Fili and Kili both have red marks on theur wrists, Dori and Oin have purple ones, which must be the reason why the silver-haired dwarf fusses so much on his brothers, and she catches a glimp of blue letters under Dwalin's vambrace, and of black ones under Balin's wrist and it makes her sad for both of the son's of Fundin._  
 _Even Gandalf has a mark, beautiful green elvish runes she cannot read, and when she asks him about it, he just smiles.  
_  
 _But she doesn't know what colour is Thorin's mark, or even if he has a mark at all._  
 _He never speaks to her directly, never touches her._  
 _And the first time he does, it's in the Misty Mountain, she almost dies, so does he, and he breaks her heart._  
She's been lost since she's left the Shire. She should never have come.  
 _She didn't know soulmates could hurt each other else than by dying. Now she does, and she wishes she doesn't._

Sherlock Holmes is the last piece of a puzzle she has long been desperate to complete.

She meets him, and everything makes sense, and she remembers. For he may be human now, but there is still something of the dragon in those high cheekbones and piercing, calculating blue-green eyes. The voice is the same too, perhaps less ancient and malevolent, but still deep and knowing.

 _Smaug_ , she thinks instinctly, _his name was Smaug_ , and she remembers.

 _The dragon._  
 _The quest._  
 _The Company._  
 _The Lonely Mountain._  
 _The Shire._  
 _The Arkenstone._  
 _The Elvenking's dungeons and the cold waters of the Lake._  
 _Azog the Defiler._  
 _The Gold Sickness._  
 _That blasted, thrice-cursed Ring she wishes she never has found._  
 _What was called later the Battle of the Five Armies._  
 _Her nephew._  
 _The Grey Havens._  
 _Her broken heart._

It's all coming back to her and there is so much it hurts, because it happened long, so long ago. Because now she has a name and a face to put on her restless dreams and brown mark.  
 _Thorin Oakenshield.  
_  
The dragon knows, too, but he doesn't speak of it.  
Because they are not what they once have been, because all what they have is painful memories, because they are not Bilbo Baggins and Smaug anymore, they are Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, a Consulting Detective and a discharged Army Doctor, and they are not supposed to know each other yet.

He deduces her whole life in two sentences, then presents her to his landlady, who is a saint by the way, then he drags her on a crime scene where she can't say that she doesn't follow him willingly.

She winces when someone calls him freak, because it remembers her of _Johanna_ , and nasty children voices echoes in her mind, and she decides that this Anderson is a dick, and that she will punch him in the face if he says the f-word again.

Otherwise, D.I. Lestrade is fine.

Then, she is sort of kidnapped by a psychopath who does creepy things with an umbrella, and wants her to spy on Sherlock for money, and she politely tells him to fuck off.

She doesn't know why she shoots the murderous cabbie. Maybe because she has thousands of questions and she needs Smaug to answers them, and he won't if he takes the bloody pill.  
It's not because she is starting to like him. Not at all.

Sherlock is smart enough to protect her from jail, and takes her to the restaurant afterwards, and they talk. He is a rather charming fellow, when he doesn't try to eat or burn you or whatever.

It doesn't surprise her to learn than he used to be and probably still is a junkie, because dragons have thousands and thousands years of memory, and the human mind isn't fit to bear it, and he's lucky it didn't drive him mad.

He too, has questions.  
He ensures her that he has no intention to kill her, that he doesn't feel the need of it. That he doesn't kill anymore, even if he used to have pyromanic tendencies when he was eight years old.

That he bears no grudge against her, because if grudge there once was, it was between Bilbo Baggins and Smaug, and he is not Smaug anymore, just as she is not Bilbo Baggins.

 _Did I ever lie to you, John?_ , he asks, and she shakes her head.  
She doesn't know why, but she trusts him. He never lied to her.  
 _Thorïn Oakenshield has weighed the value of your life and found it worth nothing._  
That was no lie.

They don't speak of the gold, they avoid the subject of the Arkenstone.  
She's grateful for that.  
 _I'm almost tempted to let you take it, if only to see Oakenshield suffer. Watch him destroy him, watch him corrupt his heart and drive him mad.  
_  
 _You were right_ , she says. _You were always right._  
 _I'm sorry_ , he replies.  
She knows he means it. Because she is the liar here. Not him.  
 _A thief and a liar._  
 _I'm sorry_ , he repeats.  
 _Let's not speak of it._  
His relief is visible. She doesn't show hers.

The creep with the umbrella happens to be Sherlock's brother. And another bloody lizard by the way. Ancalagon the Black, he was called, and she bets that he had no extra-weight then.  
Sherlock laughs, she laughs too, and it feels good to laugh again.  
 _My dear Watson, I think we're going on an adventure._  
Again.  
She was looking for a flatmate and ends up with a dragon.  
An adventure indeed.

 _Had she known, she would have never taken the bloody ring._ _Had she known. But at this point of her story, Bilbo doesn't know, and she is lost, lost and terrified._

The cavern is a dark and cold maze and seems bottomless, and her head is throbbing painfully since her fall. She hears Gollum cackling and sniffing and panting and shrieking behind her, and she runs, and she never wonders if finding a golden ring that turns you invisible is a usual situation. In fact, she finds it quite useful.

Thief! Thief! Bagginses! We hates it forever!  
 _That's probably the first time in her life she steals something, and she doesn't care if it is proper or not. She's too frightened for that. Besides, she hasn't technically stole it. She has found it. It's_ hers _.  
_  
 _She runs and runs and runs and finding the light is no relief because she is still lost somewhere in the Misty Mountains and she doesn't know what has happened to her Dwarves.  
_  
 _She doesn't kill Gollum, because he is as lost and cold and alone as her and he looks so sad, so empty. She can't see any mark on his skeletal wrist, and she doesn't think it is because his soulmate is a mute.  
_  
 _Her Dwarves are alive, and so is Thorin._  
 _His words are harsh and unfair and they hurt, and she quite enjoys the look of surprise on his face when she shows up from nowhere._  
Why did you come back?  
For you, blasted moron, _but of course, she doesn't answer that. She talks about her home and theirs, because she's too much of a coward to tell him the truth._

 _And then the Wargs are howling and they are running again and she is scared to death because the last time she has heard so many Wargs, because the little chase near Rivendell was_ nothing _compared to_ that _, it was the Fell Winter and her father_ died _.  
_  
 _Gandalf sets the trees on fire, but it doesn't matter in the end because they are all trapped on the edge of the cliff, and when she thinks it can't be any worse than that, Azog comes._ _The Pale Orc is huge and white like the moon and terrifying, and he's here for Thorin's head.  
And the majestic idiot throws himself in the trap.  
_  
 _Then she doesn't understand anything anymore._  
 _Thorin is running through the fire toward the Defiler with his sword and shield and then the Dwarf is in the Warg's jaw and there is a sickening sound of crushed bones, and he is sent flying through the air and then...  
_  
 _Then she is running and screaming and there is Orc blood everywhere, on her hands and her face and her clothes, and her little sword is soaked and buried to the hilt in the creature's chest._  
 _Her throat and eyes are burning, and she chokes on the smoke and the ashes, and she is between the Pale Orc and his prey. And obviously, he doesn't like that.  
_  
 _Thorin doesn't move anymore, but he is not dead, not yet, else the red mark under the sleeve of her tattered shirt would have turned black._

 _The sound of her thundering heart is the only things she hears, and she feels so small and helpless and she wants so badly to drop her sword and flee as fast as she can without looking back._  
 _Yet Thorin is like an anchor and she stands her ground and doesn't flinch when the Warg blows his foul breath in her face, because if Thorin Oakenshield can't defend himself, then she will until she dies, because that's what soulmates are supposed to do. Protect each other.  
_  
 _And then she is flying._

Sherlock Holmes is an awful flatmate. Especially when he is bored.

He sometimes doesn't sleep or talk or eat for days, makes stinking experiments in the kitchen, borrows her laptop without authorization, shoots the living-room's wall with her own gun, mostly at two in the morning, and he has no problem with walking around n*** because dragons don't wear clothes, and he sometimes forgot that he is not a dragon anymore. Oh, and John isn't really surprised when she discovers that he keeps various body parts in the fridge.

Yet she grows to care for the man, because he is a fucking genius. When she tells him, he seems genuinely surprised, and maybe a littke touched.  
Apparently, that's not what people usually say of him.  
 _Piss off_ , they say.  
That's not surprising either.

She cares, because he is lonely and doesn't know it.  
She cares, because he is the closest thing to a friend she has had in years.  
She cares, because he doesn't pretend to understand her, because he doesn't.  
Because there is no mark on Sherlock's wrist, there never was, and he doesn't care.

Dragons apparently don't have soulmates, because they are lonely creature, and two dragons can't live together without killing each other. That must explain why he doesn't get along with is brother, and leaves her with the great mistery of how they survived their teenage years while growing up in the same house. Mycroft doesn't have a mark either, though if he had a soulmate, it would probably the stupid umbrella he always carry with him. _Or a plate of cupcakes_ , says Sherlock with a smirk.

The World's Only Consulting Detective frequently describes himself as married to his work, and is perfectly happy with that. Some other people, however, are not.  
 _No, he's not my boyfriend. No, we're not together._  
It can be tiring.

Molly Hooper, for exemple, has got a blue mark on her wrist, yet she still hopes, and makes doe eyes and looks like a kicked puppy everytime Sherlock is around, always there, always caring, and John feels bad for her.

Because she's not interested in Sherlock. Because she is her flatmate, her doctor, her blogger, but certainly _not_ his girlfriend.

That doesn't prevent Sherlock to crash all her attemps at relationships, intentionally or not. Because apparently, a dragon does not share what is _his_. And she is _his_ flatmate.  
Her fling with Sarah Sawyer, for exemple, last exactly a month and ends with the mess with the Black Lotus. Sarah isn't strong enough to bear Sherlock's excentricities, and doesn't want to die either.

So John stays single event if everyone around her, even Mrs Hudson who live in the same flat and makes her breakfeast every morning, seem to think the contrary.  
They're living together. Not sleeping together, _for God's sake_.  
She works at Bart's, helps Sherlock on his cases, and writes when she has nothing else to do.

Ella was right. Writing helps her, but only because she has finally something to tell, and Sherlock Holmes is certainly an interesting subject. The personal blog of Doctor John H. Watson meets a certain success on the net, and that's more than she has ever dared to hope.  
She remembers writing a book, when she was Bilbo Baggins.  
 _There and back again._  
It has felt good, too. She just hopes her skills have improved since.

She feels better. It has never felt this good in years, and she even forgets about the brown mark on her wrist. She doesn't limp anymore. Her life is not perfect, but it's enough for her.

That is, of course, until Moriarty comes.

 _The sight from the Carrock at dawn is beautiful._  
 _Yet Bilbo can't see it, because the very moment Thorin wakes up, he has no better idea than yelling at her._  
What do you think you were doing? You could have get yourself killed! _he snarls in her face and she looks at the ground because even if she just faced Azog the Defiler himself, she is still a coward._  
 _To save his arse._  
 _Hairy bastard._  
 _Should have left him to die.  
_  
Did I not say that you would be a burden? That you would not survive in the wild?  
 _She feels miserable. What was she hoping for? That he would get on his knees and declare his eternal love? Stupid little girl._  
Stop, Thorin, please, it hurts...

 _She wants to cry and doesn't, because if she does he will see how weak she is and send her right back to the Shire._  
 _She doesn't want that._  
 _She doesn't want to leave him.  
_  
I have never been so wrond in all my life.  
What?  
 _And then she is engulfed in a bone-crushing hug and she blinks, twice, because that was definitely not what she expected._  
 _His face is buried in her hair and he smells of earth and rain and fire, and he feels hot, strong, alive, and the world is bright again._ _Are those tears in her eyes?_  
 _She pats his back awkwardly, and mentally slaps herself for doing so.  
_  
 _Everyone cheers and...is Thorin Oakenshield smiling?_  
 _Yes. He definitely is. At her._  
 _What a beautiful sight. She is left breathless, her mind foggy.  
_  
 _Then he sees the Lonely Mountain and forgets about her, but it doesn't matter. It's alright._  
 _Because, if only for a moment, she has felt accepted._

I believe the worst is behind us.  
 _Later, she will regret those words._  
Fool, fool, Baggins, fool, thrice-cursed fool.  
 _But for now, it really seems the worst is behind them, even if the Ring, the Ring she doesn't know is so important, is already hiding in her pocket and taking root inside her mind.  
_  
 _Everything seems fine, else for Thorin who is as fine as can be someone who has been chewed by a Warg._  
 _And Bilbo blushes as the maiden she is, because to tend his wounds, Oin forced Thorin to strip, and she sees more than she wants of this glorious, hairy chest while the old healer fusses over a pouting Thorin and washes the blood.  
_  
 _It is only when he put his clothes back that she catches a glimpse of the mark on his wrist, and it feels like someone is stabbing her from inside. She cannot read the words, but it matter not. She does not need them to understand what is wrong since the beginning._  
 _For on the inside of Thorin Oakenshield's wrist is carved a golden mark that shines under the sun.  
_  
 _Thorin doesn't know. Thorin will never know, until he dies and she says the words.  
_  
 _And she decides he won't, even if that mean they are never meant to be._

What happens at the pool is the most terrifying thing John has ever experienced.

The whole game Moriarty plays with them, a game of chess or a game of cat and mouse, depends on which side one's on, the bombs, the enigmas...everything is already creepy, but as it becomes clear that it is nothing but a game for the faceless criminal master, with them, or mostly Sherlock, as the pawns, it gest worse.

She has seen battles, fought in them, faced a dragon and the wrath of a gold sick Dwarf King, and yet nothing seems more frightening than Moriarty's schemes.

She was reckless, at this time, she realizes. Reckless and innoncent and stupide. A stupid little girl who believed in fairy tale and happy endings and princes charming, and who paid the price of blood for it. And paid well for her ignorance.

 _But you're not that anymore, do you, John?_ asks the annoying little voice in her head. _You're not reckless, nor are you innocent, and happy endings don't exist._  
Yet she is still stupid, because after the last explosion, she thinks it's over, and that life will go one. Except it doesn't, but she isn't expecting it.

She's walking in the street and the she feels the needle piercing her neck and then darkness.

She wakes up with a bomb stuffed in her coat and Moriarty's voice purring in her hear.  
 _Hi, Johnny girl. Ready for the show?  
_  
Sherlock comes, and he's got a gun, which is not reassuring at all, and she repeats everything Moriarty says, like a parrot, until he decides to show up.

Because there are three angry red dots on her chest, and she is a soldier, so she knows what will happen if she does the wrong thing. And she doesn't want to blow, and Sherlock with her.  
What a gruesome way to die.

She doesn't know exactly where the sniper is in the pool, but she knows he is here.  
Of course, this random henchman isn't the most dangerous thing in all this mess.

 _Jim._  
Molly's "gay boyfriend from IT".  
Who wears Westwood and is as mad as Hannibal Lecter, except that he probably doesn't eat people.

 _Dying..._ _That's what people do!_ he screams. Then he smirks. _But they sometimes come back, do they?_  
Her eyes lock with Sherlock, and he winces.

Moriarty _knows_. He knows about Bilbo and Smaug. How? She doesn't understand.

She jumps on his back and tells Sherlock to go, and he doesn't.  
Another failure.  
There is another sniper, of course, and she doesn't want Sherlock's head to explode, so she lets go.  
 _Stupid, Watson, stupid.  
_  
 _I will burn you. I will burn the heart of you._  
Burning a dragon. Is that psychopath completely dumb? Did he never watched Game of Thrones?  
 _I have been ensured that I don't have one._  
 _Oh, Sherlock. Of course you do, idiot. You just don't know how to use it.  
_  
Moriarty goes and leaves them alone, and then comes back, but in the few moments between, Sherlock almosts ripes the coat off her shoulders.  
 _You see, you care.  
_  
Yet, the red dots come again and Sherlock is ready to aim and fire too, and Moriarty takes his time.  
He likes playing with fire.  
 _I am fire. I am death._  
He might burn himself one day, but for now he seemingly has the upper hand and obviously enjoys it, and John eyes the pool, and wonders, if Sherlock finally fire, if she'll be quick enough to grab him and throws herself with him in the water before everything blows up.  
Likely not, and even if she has long learned to swin, she still hates being immerged.  
That's one of the few things, apparently, that she has kept of Bilbo.

She doesn't want to die.  
Then Moriarty's phone rings and it really sounds weird.  
 _Stayin' alive._  
How appropriate.

He leaves.  
He simply leaves, and John is left staring at Sherlock, wondering what she has gotten herself into.

Everything was fine and then everything isn't. She was safe and happy and then she isn't.  
And it's not even her fault this time.

 **to be continued...**  
 **Give me your thoughts!**

 **next chapter: Sherlock, season 2.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Sherlock season two, here we go! Thanks to all the lovely people who put this story in their follows/favorite :)**

 **This chapter has been corrected by the wonderful Wynni. Check her story, "The Broom-bearing Baggins of Bag-End", it's absolutely amazing!**

Chapter 3

Irene Adler breaks Sherlock's heart.  
Twice.

The first time, she dies, and Sherlock is left wandering through the flat like a lost soul, playing sad tunes on his violin, barely doing anything, wondering what is happening to him, because, obviously, he doesn't understand.

John doesn't like seeing him like this, and doesn't know what to do either, because her own heartache is entirely something else. After all, she was sure that Thorin was her soulmate. And still is, apparently.

But Sherlock's wrist is bare and desperately markless, and everything stays uncertain, even if John is fairly sure that the Dominatrix had an emerald green mark on her wrist, which was rather ironic considering her profession.  
A platonic relationship. Perfect to match with Sherlock's sex life, or more precisely, lack thereof.

She knows because Adler used to share Sherlock's exhibitionists tendencies, which meant no sleeves and no clothes at all, but she was not there to hear their first words.

So John feels utterly helpless and doesn't like it. She is a doctor. She needs _symptoms_.

Sherlock's behaviour is certainly unusual, but with him, everything is. It is perfectly clear that he was attracted to Irene Adler, because he is human in this life, after all. Alder was a stunning woman, but John doesn't know if that is enough to make Adler his soulmate.

Sherlock repeats it often enough. He doesn't have a soulmate, or doesn't know if he does, or doesn't want to admit it.

Married to his work.

John knows the feeling of loss to well to miss it in someone, and Sherlock is an absolute wreck for six months. He works on some cases, but his enthusiasm seems to be gone God knows where.  
Adler's phone obsesses him.

She continues to write about him, because the blog, her blog, has become a net phenomenon and she can't say if it is a good thing or not. _Hat-man and Robin_ , the Media call them. Mrs Hudson finds it funny.

She finally punches Anderson in the face, because she is angry. The prat calls Sherlock a freak again, and this time the detective can't hide his feelings as well as he used to. He looks so wounded, like a lost child, that John snaps.  
 _Are you insane?_ Lestrade yells, astonished, while the arsehole frantically wipes his bleeding nose.  
She shrugs.  
 _He said the f-word. He was warned._  
She promises that the next time, she'll break his jaw, and Sherlock looks like he is feeling slightly better after that.

And then the Woman comes back, and this time she grips the detective's heart with her perfect long scarlet nails and tears it into shreds.

Or perhaps it's him who does.

 _I've always assumed love is a dangerous disadvantage. Thank you for the final proof._

John is not here to see it, because she is away when it happens, but she comes back early enough to see Adler leaving 221B with tears in her eyes.

This whole mess is all Mycroft's fault, and John doesn't understand why she doesn't stick his umbrella in his arse. He just dragged Sherlock into something he shouldn't have and leaves him cope with the damages afterwards.  
John feels grateful when he asks her to lie about Irene Adler's death, a real death this time. She discovers, or finds she already knew, that he doesn't want to hurt his little brother and cares for him in his own, awkward way.  
She does as she is told and lies, and if Sherlock guesses it, because he is a freaking genius, he doesn't speak about it.  
 _A thief and a liar._  
Always.  
From life to life, some things don't change.

It's just John and Sherlock again, not John and Sherlock and the Woman's ghost and slightly embarrassing ringtones.

Everything seems fine again, but Moriarty's shadow is still here, lurking, and John is not foolish enough to think he will leave them in peace.

 _They have known each other for nearly six months, but their first real conversation, in which Thorin doesn't bark and says more than three words, is at Beorn's house, and it's about feet.  
_ _Her feet are of an average size by Hobbit standards, but for the Dwarves they seem weird.  
_ _Dwarf feet are hairless and so impossibly tiny, that she wonders how they manage to stand up and walk on these stumps._

 _Thorin laughs and asks if Hobbits wear their beards on their feet.  
_ You would have been quite lovely, _he adds,_ if all these hair has been on your face.  
 _She wonders if she should feel pleased or insulted, because who knows, with Thorin and his absolute lack of diplomatic skills?  
_ _She decides to take it in the positive aspect, because he smiles more often. It seems that they are starting to build a frail friendship, and she wants to keep it, if not earn more._

 _After Beorn's kind hospitality, though, the Mirkwood feels a bit like a cold shower, and the fact that Gandalf leaves them alone when they need him the most doesn't reassure them. Hallucinations, then giant spiders, and when she thinks it can't get any worse, they must deal with pompous Elves._

 _Their King is an absolute arse, his son isn't any better, and she's glad she has her little golden Ring safely tucked in her pocket. She doesn't know why she couldn't tell Gandalf about it, as if a string was pulling on her mind to stop her, but right now, she doesn't care._

 _While invisible, she wanders in the Elvenking's Halls and silently cheers when Kili meets his soulmate.  
_ _Her name is Tauriel, and she is the Captain of the Woodland Realm's Guard, and is more sympathetic than most of her kin. They both look young, innocent, joyful, and so beautiful together, with their matching red marks and beaming smiles, that Bilbo almost bumps into the fair-haired brat called Legolas who doesn't look too happy about this new bonding. He looks, in fact, so pissed that his perfect features bear an ugly frog-like frown. She doesn't laugh out loud, and wishes she could have._

 _When she steals the key and pops out from nowhere right in front of Thorin's cell, he looks happy and relieved to see her. That's another small victory._

 _Of course, the Dwarves are less enthusiastic about the barrels. Hobbits are definitely not aquatic creatures either, but that's the only solution she has found worth a try._ _That doesn't keep Kili from being injured, nor does it keep the Orcs from chasing after them, because they must be as stubborn as Dwarves when it comes to slaughtering people._

 _They escape.  
_ _Things are getting slightly better.  
_ _They all look like a bunch of drowned rats. They have no clothes, no weapons, no food, and she might have caught a nasty cold, but in the end, they are safe._

 _They complain again and blame the Burglar.  
_ _They keep complaining about the way Bard smuggles them into Laketown, they keep complaining about the weapons and clothes he gives them.  
_ _They keep complaining about everything._

 _Insufferable creatures._

 _She wonders why she bothers to help such ungrateful people, b_ _ut when they are caught red-handed stealing in the armory, she vouches for them. She vouches for them, because they are her friends, and her soulmate's kin, and friends are meant to protect each other._

 _Thorin's grateful expression, even if he doesn't thank her, doesn't say anything, is enough for her._

While she writes the affaire of the Hound of the Baskervilles on her blog, John laughs. In the thick of it, she was terrified, but afterwards, it makes her think of Farmer Maggot's dogs. Sherlock doesn't understand and shoots her a strange look from behind his experiment. Before blowing up said experiment, and the table, and half of the kitchen.

Mrs Hudson is furious and Sherlock apologizes.  
He apologizes a lot, since Christmas Eve, since he insulted Molly and didn't really meant to. He even apologized to her.  
 _I don't have friends. I just got one.  
Alright_, she answered. Because it is. It's alright.  
They are friends. Best friends, actually. The best friend she ever had. Even if he is an insufferable prick most of the time.

There are days they are fine, and days they aren't, but it is alright.

She has a panic attack on a crime scene, one day, and Sherlock is the one who comforts her, and she's alright.

It's snowing, and the man is dead. His throat is slit, but he crawled for a while before he died, and there is blood everywhere, streaking the bright, white, cold snow ...

 _... and the wind is howling on Ravenhill and she hears the Eagles somewhere, but her hands are red, a hot crimson red that blooms on her palms like a deadly flower, smelling of copper and salt and her tears are hot too on her cheeks and_ no no no please no _..._

John chokes and shivers and the world is spinning, and every breath in her lungs hurts. She just breaks.

The corpse's cold, dead eyes are fixed on her, unseeing and unforgiving, and she can't look at him. She can't, she can't, but it's too late. All she can see is his blue eyes and the red wound, open like a sliced pomegranate, like a second smile on his throat.

She wants to scream but she can't.  
She wants to run but she can't.  
She can't, and it hurts.

And then Sherlock is here, with his soothing hands and soothing words and she clutches his coat and buries her face against his chest and sobs quietly in the crook of his neck, like the broken little girl she is, had never stopped being.

 _Breathe, John, breathe, it's okay, it's okay, breath, focus, John, John, listen to me, John..._

He rubs her back and whispers in her ear until she calms down.  
 _What are you staring at_? He snarls angrily because the whole Scotland Yard is obviously staring at them, and Anderson's eyes must be popping out of his head. At this moment he sounds so much like the dragon that she almost punches him.

He drives her back to Baker Street and tucks her into bed under Mrs Hudson's care. He then catches the murderer and sends him to the hospital in the process.

 _What happened, John?_ He asks when she feels better.  
She doesn't answer.  
 _Was it about Thorin Oakenshield?_ He asks again.  
 _How do you know?  
_ Her voice is hoarse from crying, and she is tired, so tired. But they never spoke about that, so how can he possibly know?  
 _I'm not that oblivious_ , he shrugs. _What happened to him?_

His eyes are on her wrist, and she almost cries again.  
She doesn't want to talk about that. But Sherlock, well, Smaug in this case, can't possibly know what happened after the burning of Laketown. He had been _dead_.

 _He died_ , she says suddenly. And that means everything and should be enough. But it isn't.

Sherlock looks at her wrist again. Frowns.  
 _Then why isn't your mark black?  
_ She stares at him and he stares at her.  
 _Black_ , the teacher's voice shrieks in her mind, _is when the bond is severed by death._

Truth be told, she perfectly recalls a time when she, Bilbo, used to have a black mark. It was...after.

But Johanna Helen Watson was reborn with a brown mark.

She shakes her head.  
 _No.  
_ Thorin Oakenshield can't be alive.  
He is dead.  
She buried him, after all.  
And even if it was possible...

 _Would it change anything?_ She asks, and this time, it's Sherlock who doesn't answer.  
 _I'll be here if you need me,_ he finally says after an awkward silence.

Soon the violin is playing and echoes in the flat. He is upset, and she knows he is going to make inquiries, It's a question without an answer, and Sherlock Holmes doesn't like unresolved problems.

Her own words are ringing in her ears.  
 _Would it change anything?_

 _Thorin Oakenshield has weighed the value of your life and found it worthed nothing._

 _No, it wouldn't.  
_ Because it would mean hope, and it's been a longtime she hasn't had any. Because to hope is nothing but to lie to one's own self, and it hurts, in the end.

Yet John has no time to linger on that rather disturbing question, because Moriarty decides to show his annoying self again.

And destroys everything.

 _He almost kisses her in Laketown. Almost._

 _The feast is magnificent, maybe too much considering the city's evident lack of wealth, and the Master and his snivelling sycophant Alfrid are far too hypocritical for her to really enjoy the party, yet it is good to have her belly full again. Even better, of course, for a Hobbit._

 _She has lost weight. She is not soft anymore. Her own body feels foreign. She can feel her own bones against her fingers. The other Shirelings, if they had seen her, would have declared her sick._ _They are not here, though. She is amongst Dwarves and Men. In the dress they have given her, she almost looks like a human child, save for her hairy feet.  
_ _It feels good to be dressed like a woman again, and she feels beautiful._

 _Thorin is slightly drunk, perhaps. It needs a huge amount of alcohol to get a Dwarf drunk, and the feast has plenty of it._ _She hasn't drunk that much, but the atmosphere in the Master's house is choking and noisy, and she feels a bit dizzy, so she's less intimidated than usual when she goes on a balcony in need of fresh hair and finds him behind her._

 _He smiles, and there is no particular reason for that. It warms her from the inside._

 _Far, far away in the night, the Lonely Mountain's black form under the moon is a beautiful sight. They don't speak, they just stare, and she thinks of the dragon inside it. Beast within Beauty. It frightens her._

 _If she can forget that small detail, it's almost as romantic as in the books she has read under her covers at night, hoping not to get caught._ _The naughty kind, obviously._

It's beautiful _, she finally says.  
_ _He nods.  
_ Beautiful indeed.

 _He is so close that she can feel the heat of his body and warmth of his breath. His usually piercing blue eyes are a little bit foggy, yet they smile as much as his mouth, and she forgets the Mountain.  
_ _Thorin's thumbs strokes absently her cheek. His touch feels like fire and she stiffens.  
_ Beautiful, indeed _, he breathes, and slowly leans closer._

 _And she hopes._

 _She really, really hopes it is finally happening, because she is nothing but a helplessly romantic little girl, stuck in her childish dreams of her Prince Charming in shining armor on his white horse, or rather pony, in her precise case, and this little girl knows that it is wrong, that he is drunk, that she, they shouldn't, but she hopes nonetheless. Not that she really knows how to react, because even if her mother gave her the...Talk, when she was a impetuous teen, and even if she had some, well, readings, she never really had the time or the opportunity for dalliances._

 _And he is too close, and she throws and drowns herself in the moment, because it looks like the fairy tale is finally becoming real.  
_ _Usually, in the stories, the Prince always steals the fair Maiden's first kiss. She may not be a fair Maiden, rather a lonely spinster, but Thorin is definitely a Prince, and her soulmate._ Hers.

 _She feels incredibly lucky, her head is spinning, and she almost hears birds singing, and he doesn't matter if he has a gold mark on his wrist. In a moment like this one, it's better to forget it._

 _His lips ghosts against hers, and then..._

 _Then Bofur comes, drunk, singing, and hatless, a truly disturbing sight, and crashes everything. She really, really wants to punch him in the face._ _In the mere blink of an eye, Thorin is back to his usual grumpy self, and it's as if nothing has happened.  
_ _She tucks herself in a man-sized bed, far too big for her, and falls asleep with a slight heartache that lingers until second breakfast the next morning.  
_ _Thorin doesn't remember, or acts as if he doesn't. She doesn't even have the strength to blame him. They are finally on their way to the Lonely Mountain, even without half of the Company due to Kili's wound, and all this hiking is very tiring._

 _Later, much later, she will wonder about what if. What if something had really happened? If it would have changed anything?_

 _When she enters the Mountain, and is welcomed by a rather hostile, giant fire-breathing lizard, she finds out some things. Staying alive, for example, is far more important than that._

John runs.

John runs like she has never run in all her life, at least in this one, and her heart is pounding in her ribcage like it is going to explode, and her leg is starting to hurt, and her breath is shallow, but it doesn't matter.

It's all in running, in fact. The faster one runs, the lesser one is late.

Bilbo Baggins never ran fast enough, and Bilbo Baggins was too late, and she paid the heaviest price for it. For John Watson, it feels like everything is starting again, and it's like being hopelessly stuck in a loop.  
And this time, she wants to break the loop.

It.  
Won't.  
Happen.  
Again.

She won't lose someone she loves again.

Anger rises and spreads like wildfire in her veins, and she runs faster. Bilbo Baggins was never angry enough. She never hated anyone enough. At least, not when she should have.  
And John Watson, at this moment, hates.

She hates Anderson and Donovan for spoiling everything, for being happy because of Sherlock's so-called fakeness.

She hates Kitty Riley for the cobweb of lies she has carefully woven all around them.

She hates Mycroft, because the brat sold his little brother to Moriarty for information. He weighed the value of Sherlock's life and found it worth nothing. He knows far too much and never says anything. He is lucky she just punched him in the face instead of smashing his skull against the floor. She could have. He is no dragon anymore, just as she is no Hobbit, and he seems to forget it far too easily.

She even hates Sherlock, for not telling her what was happening until it was too late, for not trusting her enough, for thinking, even for a second, that she could ever have listened to that bitch of a journalist's lies, and for making her believe Mrs Hudson was hurt just because he wanted her gone for God-knows-what reason.

Above all, she hates Moriarty, because he knows about Bilbo Baggins and Smaug, because Mycroft fucking Holmes told him, and because that's not even why he wants Sherlock dead. He wants Sherlock dead, he wants Sherlock destroyed, because it _entertains_ him.  
That's why she hates him so much. Even Azog the Defiler had a more legitimate reason that. To admit that fact makes her sick.

She hates herself too, for not being fast enough to her liking and being forced to take a cab. She hates herself because for the first time in decades, she prays to every God she knows not be too late again. She even invokes Mahal and Yavanna, but it seems that they are long lost and forgotten since the days she still had a little faith, or aren't very keen to help or even listen to a sinner like herself.

It is already too late.

Sherlock is on the roof, and he is crying on the phone, his voice shaking like a leaf. It terrifies her, more than anything, because he sounds like a lost child, and seeing him on the roof, high, so high and out of reach, reminds her of _Fili,_ who was merely a child and fell, too.  
 _Turn around and walk back the way you came.  
_ _Run_ , Fili had said, but it's the same thing. Just not the same words.  
She hadn't run. It may not be the same lifetime, not the same person, but she won't run either.

 _No, I'm coming in_ , she almost screams in the phone, and fear twists her from Inside.  
 _Just. Do as I ask. Please._  
He is pleading. Begging. All these things he never does.  
 _Oh God.  
_ She wonder if Moriarty has a gun pointed on the back of his head. It has to be that. It must be that.

 _I invented Moriarty. I'm a fake._  
No, no, no, no. That's not true. That was never true. It must be one of his cruel games, again.

She watches Sherlock's unruly black curls flowing in the wind, and she doesn't understand. That would be too easy. And she argues and begs and pleads him to shut up, to stop that nonsense, because he must come down that stupid roof, he has to, and everything will be alright again...

 _Keep your eyes fixed on me. Please, will you do this for me?  
_ No way she won't. How could she?  
 _This phone call, it's... it's my note. That's what people do, don't they? Leave a note.  
_ She fears. She fears, because that's something she has already heard, in her mother's mouth. Back to the time the therapists were telling her stupid stories and lies and whispering about forbidden pills and slashed wrists and things not-to-do.  
 _Leave a note when?  
_ It can't be that. It can't. And then...

 _Goodbye, John._

 _Farewell, Master Burglar._

And he spreads his arms and falls, and for a moment, she almost thinks he's going to fly away.

 _I am fire. I am death._

He doesn't have wings anymore.

 _The Arkenstone is certainly one of the most beautiful things she ever laid her eyes on. There is an entire galaxy shining in the great white gem's depths. There is something cold about this light, and its smooth surface is icy in her hands, and it's somehow frightening.  
_ _She doesn't know where this peculiar feeling comes from, but it makes her terribly ill-at-ease. Perhaps it's the atmosphere, because the entire Mountain reeks of death. It smelled as if something was rotting in the dark. Perhaps there was._

 _The King's Jewel is nothing but a stone, after all. It is a shiny, pretty jewel, and Hobbits have no interest in that. They value food, earth, flowers, home and family, but they have no use for rocks._ _Simple, useless rock.  
_ _But she thinks the same of her little ring, and the future will prove her wrong._

 _That's why she doesn't quite understand what keeps her from giving it to Thorin. After all, that's why she entered the dragon's lair in the first place, isn't it? She absolutely don't want to keep it for herself.  
_ _When Thorin asks for it, she can't answer.  
_ _Perhaps it's because of what Smaug said._

I am almost tempted to let you take it, if only to see Oakenshield suffer.

 _She doesn't want him to suffer. Besides, it's just a stone. How can it make someone suffer? That doesn't make any sense. The dragon is old and bitter and most certainly smart, and he's toying with her like a cat would do with a mouse._ _A very, very small mouse, lost in the claws of a very, very huge cat._

I _t's a dangerous game, and she plays it, and enjoying it, because she somehow does, leaves her feeling sick._ _The winner gets the Arkenstone, and the loser dies.  
_ _n the end, she wins, or so she thinks, and takes what she has come for. Because the dragon may be smart, and old, and smart, and he can smell her as much as he wants, he can't catch her when he can't see her._

Thief in the shadow. A thief and a liar.  
 _Well, from a certain point of view. She may rob him of the stone, but it's only stealing back, after all, and her attempts at lying are disastrous.  
_ _No. Smaug is the liar, and she won't listen to him._

Watch it destroy him, watch it corrupt his heart and drive him mad.

 _Or perhaps that's why she keeps it._

 _The strange, mad gleam in Thorin's blue eyes, his eagerness, almost brutality to regain his birthright. And the sword he points toward her belly. The gold's reflection in the blade is like a malevolent dragon eye.  
_ Thorin? _  
_ _His face is cold. He doesn't recognize her. It's not him anymore. There is something else that has taken his place. Something far more dangerous._

The gold, it's the gold _, she thinks, and she remembers Lord Elrond's words._

A sickness runs deep in this family. Are you sure that Thorin Oakenshield won't succumb to the same disease?

 _It can't be that. She can't let it happen._

 _The Arkenstone is burning in her pocket, calling, screaming for its rightful master to claim it.  
_ Thorin?  
 _He surely wouldn't kill her for a stone. Would he?_

 _The dragon roars, and the golden mist in the Dwarf's eyes fades away, and he is Thorin again.  
_ You will burn.  
 _He pulls her behind her, and they run._

 _They run and run and run, and all the Dwarves are with them, but it doesn't make her feel safer._ _There is no shelter, no way out. They are trapped, with the remainder of those who couldn't escape before them, and a very upset dragon._ _The Arkenstone feels heavy in her pocket. As feels the Ring, but not in the same way.  
_ _She doesn't want to die like this.  
_ _Neither does Thorin.  
_ If this is to end in fire, then we will all burn together, he snarls, and he looks like the King he is supposed to be. Like the King he is.

 _And they run again._ _Run, and run, and run, and what happens next seems blurred, filled with fear and fire and heat and adrenalin.  
_ I am King, under the Mountain _, the dragon roars, and it echoes under the high stone roofs.  
_ _Then..._

 _Gold.  
_ _Gold everywhere._

 _But dragons don't burn easily, and that's really a poor idea, because Smaug decides to seek revenge on the people of Laketown._ _He flies away and gold rains under the moon, and it's beautiful.  
_ _But when the city starts to burn, she watches with horror and this sickening feeling of being helpless and guilty._

What have we done? What have I done?

 _Because all of this, all of this is her fault, because she has awaken the dragon. All that for a stupid stone that feels too heavy in her Pocket.  
_ _She hates it already, because she can't hear the screams in the distance, but the wind carries the smell, the awful smell of burning wood and charred flesh, and she retches on the ground until there is nothing left in her belly.  
_ _Fili, Kili and Oin are, were there. And Bard and Bain and Sigrid and Tilda and an entire city._

 _She, Bilbo Baggins, has killed them. Killed them all._

I am fire. I am death.

 _He may be all that, fire made flesh, and she released this doom upon them._ _Her lungs are burning, and her tears are hot on her ashes-streaked cheeks, and she watches, and watches and watches because she can't pulls her eyes off the consequences of her stupidity, until the dragon suddenly fell from the sky, roaring in pain and disbelief._

 _But as she finally has the strength to look at Thorin, and catches a glimpse of gold in his sapphire eyes, she wonders if what they have brought in the Mountain is not far, far worse than fire and death._

There is nothing on Sherlock's grave but his name.  
And the flowers she puts here, but he doesn't particularly like flowers. _Didn't._ It's difficult to adjust.

John is in deep mourning. It's the first time, in this life. It hurts, because she isn't used to it anymore.

She cries. She cries until exhaustion, until there are no tears left in her whole body anymore, until her eyes are red and puffy and unseeing. She cries and sobs and muffles her screams in her pillows. She cries so much that she doesn't shed a single tear at the burial, and it's better, because she can't let them see how weak, alone and hollow she is.

There was another burial once, when she was still Bilbo Baggins, where she couldn't hold back her wrecked sobs. Bilbo was a fragile flower, a daughter of earth and soft grass. John Watson has turned to stone, to iron, to steel, and she doesn't show her weaknesses to anyone but herself.  
And the dead.  
But, of course, he doesn't know that. None of them do.

 _I'm sorry for your loss.  
_ They all say that.  
 _Liars._

No one mourns for Sherlock the way she does, no one else than her fears to close her eyes because the only thing she can see is her best friend's brain scattered on the ground and his lifeless eyes staring at her in his blood-streaked face.

No else than her has the nightmarish sound of his skull exploding in her ears.

No one else than her feels under her fingertips the absence of his pulse under his markless wrist's skin.

No one else than her washes her hands ten times a day because they always seem soaked with his blood.

No one else has its metallic scent stuck in her nostrils.

No one else, and she has never felt so utterly alone.

Almost no one comes to Sherlock's burial. No ancient and seemingly satisfied client, no so-called friend, not even Mycroft, not even his own parents.

There is just her and Mrs Hudson, Lestrade and Molly, and some random, faceless people. Surprisingly, Anderson, who looks truly devastated and spends his time sobbing and clutching his head in his hands and apologizing, comes. She doesn't have to bother punching him in the face. Lestrade does it for her.  
It doesn't even satisfy her, because Sherlock is dead and isn't coming back.  
Never.  
Ever.  
Neither is Moriarty, but she cannot care less.  
Sherlock is dead and buried, and it's so unfair, and when she is done with crying, she isn't even sad anymore.

 _I'm angry_ , she says calmly in front of the grave. It's the first time of her life that she says it out loud.

 _It's okay, John. There's nothing unusual in that, that's the way he made everyone feel. All the marks on my table and the noise. Firing guns off at one in the morning. Bloody specimens in my fridge. Imagine! Keeping bodies where there's food. And the fighting! Drove me up the wall with all his carryings on!  
_ Mrs Hudson complains. It's her own way to cope with her grief. Remembering what was wrong with him, because that's the memories that hurt the least.

But Sherlock wasn't just an annoying prick, and she misses him. The good, the bad, everything. The marks on the table and the noise, the gunshots and the violin at one in the morning, the body parts in the fridge.  
Every. Single. Thing.

She's never been good at speaking, and he would probably mock her for being so melodramatic, but everything has to get out. She owes him a last goodbye. All the things she couldn't say to him when he was alive and never will because he is gone. Forever.  
Time to admit it.  
And yet...

 _You told me once that you weren't a hero. There were times that I didn't even think you were human._

Stupid thing to say. He isn't. _Wasn't._

 _Let me tell you this, you were the best man and the most human... human being that I have ever known, and no one will ever convince me that you told me a lie._

No. Never. She is the liar. Not him.

 _And so... there. I was so alone and I owe you so much._

So, so much and more.

 _Please, there's just one more thing. One more thing. One more miracle, Sherlock, for me. Don't be... dead. Would you do that, just for me? Just stop it, stop this..._

And John takes her walking stick and limps away, because she can't bear looking at this blasted grave anymore. _Foolish, foolish little girl._ It's not the first time she begs a dead man not to be dead. She knows very well it won't work.  
Still...

She goes straight to Mycroft, because he knows too much, and he owes her a life.  
And her mark is _brown_ , not _black_.  
She owes Sherlock an explanation, because he died without a solution to this problem. And she will have her answers, even if that means gouging Mister Iceman's brain to extract them.

She stares at him, lets her anger rise within her.  
Ice. Ice. Not fire.  
She asks, and her words burn her lips like poison.

 _Is Thorin Oakenshield alive?_ She snarls in his face, and she holds his gaze because even dragons can't frighten her anymore.  
And fate is a bitch, because his single word means everything.

 _Yes._

 **Give me your thoughts! Next chapter: the two years between season 1 and 2.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Hi everyone, and thank you for your support!**

 **This chapter has been corrected by my wonderful Wynni ;)**

 **I won't have access to a computer the whole next week, so I might be late for the next chapter.**

 **Guest: Thanks for your review! here's your answer...**

Chapter 4

Thirty-one years old John Watson is not angry anymore. Thirty-one years old John Watson is _tired_.

That's a different, but not-so-unwelcome, feeling, after years of burning anger. Anger was the faithful companion of her already decaying youth, and thirty is the end of it.  
Thirty is three decades, and thirty is the year Sherlock kills himself.

She is too numb, too tired to be angry anymore. Sherlock's fall is like a painkiller. _Morphin_. She doesn't feel anything anymore, like an old woman who has seen everything and survived everything and wonders why she is still here why all the others are long gone and out of her reach.

It's possible.  
 **  
**Once upon a time, there was a lass named Bilbo Baggins, who lived until she became very, very old. Though it was not really living, nor surviving, because she wasn't trying to. It was going on. Simply going on until the end comes almost without help. Of course, it was mainly the Ring that was keeping her from fading, but she didn't know that.

The fact is, she is old, and she feels old, even if her body is still healthy. She simply forgets it sometimes. She doesn't particularly want to live, bue she doesn't particularly wants to die either.  
She wants to be left in peace. Just that. But she can't live as a recluse, else people would come and ask question, and she doesn't want to face them.  
So she tries to go on and live a normal life, a life normal people are supposed to live.  
But she is not normal.  
She has lived twice and seen and lost too much for that.

She works at Barts and talks when she is supposed to, smiles when she is supposed to.

Even if she is screaming inside, because nobody cares.

One year.

It's so fast and so slow. Still, many things happen.

Sherlock's name is cleared. He was not a fake. Moriarty was real.  
People are rather reluctant to admit it, because it means they all have innocent blood, and brain in this case, on their hands., from the policeman to the random bloke who snickered with his friends about his opinion on the matter,

What a pity she can't put half of the population of London on trial for slander, failure to assist a person in danger, murder and stupidity.

Sherlock seemingly had many people who cared for him, and choose to show up when he is not there anymore. Anderson is one of them. John know Sherlock wouldn't have appreciated, but doesn't say anything.

 _I believe in Sherlock Holmes._

The words spread and with them pins, posters, focus groups and blogs. It's been a long time since she has closed hers. Because without Sherlock Holmes, what, exactly, is Doctor John H. Watson?  
Nothing, really.  
Just a crippled, limping, thirty-something ex-soldier, too tired to fight anymore, with bags under her eyes, and sandy-blond hair that looks grey.  
No wonder she has a brown mark. No wonder Thorin doesn't want her.  
Because Thorin Oakenshield is alive and doesn't want to have anything to do with her. Or doesn't remember her, and she doesn't know which is worse.

A broken bond, apparently, can be mended, but only if the two soulmates are willing. Apparently, one of them isn't. She doesn't know if it is him, or her.  
She isn't even sure if he was the one who broke their almost nonexistent bond, or if it was simply the consequences of her own actions. Whatever happened, it has not changed from life to life. And she doesn't know if she wants it to change. She doesn't know if she is able to face him, to look at him in the eyes. She doesn't know.

So she tries to think of something else.

She tries retirement. Country doesn't suit her.

She tries alcohol, and pubs. She ends up in bed with Lestrade, who tries to cope with Sherlock's death and his own divorce, and they both agree it's better to stay friend and never speak about it again.

She tries Harry. Not the best idea she ever had.

She tries Molly. That's slightly better. Molly makes her feel better, safer, even if she is awkward and clumsy. As does Mrs Hudson.

She tries.

What she doesn't try, is to cope with her soulmate problem.

Mycroft gave her a name and a phone number on a card. It is on her desk, next to her laptop. She stares at it for hours, and does nothing.

 _Sebastian Moran._

That's his name in this life.  
She googles, of course, but there is so little about him that it's almost as if he never existed.  
No Facebook, no Twitter.  
He graduated from Eton and that's the only picture she gets of him. He must be eighteen and sits behind all his classmates, the furthest possible from the photographer. She doesn't recognize him for sure. He's just a name under a blurred dark-haired face.  
After that, she finds a Colonel Sebastian Moran in the British Army, a decorated soldier, reformed for an unknown reason. Just like her, in fact, but there is nothing more.  
Just a name.  
And the number, but each time her hands reaches for the phone, she always holds back at the last minute. She is a coward. She knows it.

 _Would it change anything?_

No.

It just hurts.

And she's not ready to be hurt again, not so soon after Sherlock.

So she sits and stares at the numbers on the little white rectangle and wonders what would happen if she dared to phone. Of course, she doesn't.

 _You have no claim over me, you miserable rat!  
_ He made it quite clear.  
Perhaps he was, and still is, right. Perhaps she's not worth a try.

She couldn't even protect her best friend. And that's another thing.  
How to explain _Smaug_?  
 _Traitor._

No.  
It's better to leave the past were it is buried and try to forget it , or at least, not to think of it. It's better like this.

She keeps the name and the phone number. She just doesn't use it.

She wonders how Mycroft got it. But she avoids him, now, because if Bilbo Baggins' capacity for forgiveness seemed unlimited, however, John H. Watson's is not. And Mycroft sent his little brother to his death.

That, she can't forgive, and therefore, she won't allow him to meddle in her life again. But he is the British Government. He doesn't need her permission to do so. He just does. That's why he was so willing to give her that number, wasn't it? A pathetic attempt to apologize.

It doesn't work.

He tries to phone her. Several times.  
She never answers and turns down her phone as soon as his name appears on the screen, and sometimes even before. After all, very few have her number, and even fewer take the time to call.

But he is Mycroft fucking Holmes, cleverer than his brother and at least as stubborn, and he has other ways than the phone. Ways that John doesn't always expect.

That's why, when it happens once more, on a rainy londonian day, she barely looks at her mobile when it starts to ring. Because it is late, and she is tired, and she likes to annoy him.  
Smart as he is, he'll give up as soon as he understands she doesn't want to talk to him.  
He usually does.

Except this time, he does not, and the phones keeps stubbornly ringing and ringing. So she picks it up and frowns in annoyance.  
It's not Mycroft.  
 _Unknown number.  
_ So she answers.  
 _John Watson.  
_ There is a silence. Then…

 _Bilbo?_

The voice is deep, yet strangled and unsure, and terribly familiar, and there is a sudden ache in her chest, as if something was slowly crushing it from inside.

 _It's me._ **  
**

_Thorin is sick._

 _It's terrifying and there is nothing she can do, else than watching him drown deeper and deeper in his gold-filled dreams, striding through the Mountain's great Halls, clad in his grandfather's clothes that smell of dust and decay and dragon, and laughing madly, surrounded by endless treasure hoards._

 _The thought of the Arkenstone is eating him form inside, and he urges the Company to dig and dig and dig in the gold to find it, as if nothing else mattered. A_ _nd nothing else matters anymore._

 _Dragon sickness._

 _Bilbo watches, and searches like the others, or at least pretends to, and the King's Jewel's weight in her pocket is almost too much to bear._ _It burns her in retaliation for her treachery through her clothes. She feels so sick, to be the cause of all this._ _After all, all what she had to do was to hand the stone to Thorin and be happy. Yet, she couldn't when it was the right moment, and now, this moment seems slow to come again, and the gem is heavier and heavier each second._

It is the King's Jewel. Am I not the King?!

 _Would it be better if she gave it to him? Would he heal?  
_ _Balin's tears and grief-stricken face are a sufficient answer.  
_ Perhaps it's better if it remains lost.  
 _No, it wouldn't._

Watch it destroy him, watch it corrupt his heart and drive him mad.  
 _The dragon was right, it's already happening, even without the blasted stone, and all she can do is watch. And pray._

 _At least, Fili, Kili, Bofur and Oin are alive and well. But the look of disbelief on Fili's face, Fili who knows better than most, when he sees his uncle's state, is painful to behold._

 _It's too much.  
_ _It's too much for her, and she seeks loneliness for once and sits in the dark.  
_ _The acorn's surface is smooth and cool, and it's somehow reassuring.  
_ What is that?  
 _Thorin is glaring daggers at her, and it's really, really frightening, and she flinches._

 _She has been warned, after all. They all have been.  
_ If anyone should find it and withhold it from me... I will be avenged.  
 _A small part of her still hopes he wouldn't hurt her. That's really a small, small part._ _She's glad it's just the acorn she holds._

I picked it up, in Beorn's garden.  
 _His face softens. He looks...relieved. Almost in awe.  
_ You've carried it all this way?  
 _Her chest tightens. His tone is not aggressive anymore.  
_ I'm going to plant it in my garden, in Bag End.  
 _**  
**__If she ever returns. She winces. But she will anyway, even if it ends well for both of them. Thorin is a King. Kings don't marry Shire spinsters, should they be their soulmate._ _And Thorin will die. She forgets it too easily._ Gold. _There's gold on his wrist, and in his eyes, and in his heart, and nothing else matters._

It's a poor prize, to take back to the Shire.  
 _She takes a deep breath. A poor prize, indeed. The greatest prize she could have hoped for stands right in front of her. But who is she, to have such high hopes?  
_ Nothing.  
 _The Burglar, bound by a contract._ _That's what she is, what she will stay, and she has already overstepped her role.  
_ A thief and a liar.  
 _The dragon is there, in her mind and his, and his claws have sunk deep._

One day it'll grow, and every time I'll look at it I'll remember. The good, the bad. And how lucky I am that I made it home.  
 _And Thorin smiles. A wide, beaming smile that makes his face shining with happiness. He looks younger, lighter and so, so beautiful, this silly Dwarf King. For a moment, it looks like the golden mist is gone from his eyes, and the old Thorin, the Thorin she loves, is back._

 _Her resolutions crumble. She's going to tell him. Everything. Everything from the very beginning, and she will give him the stone and apologize and they will be alright. They will be. They have to.  
_ Thorin, I…  
 _**  
**__And Dwalin comes and that makes two people she wants to punch in the face for interrupting. When she looks at Thorin again, his face has fallen, and he is frowning again, and the dark, cold, gold-veiled look is back._

 _And when he rejects Bard's plea, her heart sinks, and she fights back bitter tears, because she knows that he's lost. And he doesn't even know it._

Their first date is quite awkward. It's more a meeting than a date, actually.  
 _To set things right._  
That's his words.

She spends half a hour yelling at Mycroft by phone, because _how the hell did Thorin Oakenshield get her number_ , else by Sherlock's arsehole of a brother?

Then another hour to decide if she is going to wear a dress or her usual clothes, which mean a jean, a shirt, and a knitted sweater. She decides for the latter. That's not as if it was a romantic date, isn't it?

 _So soon after Sherlock?_ Mrs Hudson says with a disapproving look.  
She could have argued, but she does not. The landlady is a hopeless case in the matter of hers and Sherlock's supposed relationship.  
 _Shut up, Martha,_ she says in annoyance.  
Mrs Hudson looks extremely offended. She apologizes.

Then she spends another hour toying with the thought of not going.  
 _I'll understand if you don't want to see me._  
That's what he said.

The fact is, she doesn't know. It was much simpler before that call. But she now lives in a world where he exists, where he is real, and the possibilities it opens frighten her more than anything.

She decided for _Angelo_ , because it's in known territory. And Angelo doesn't ask questions. That's one of his many qualities, and John know to appreciate that. Besides, his cooking is pretty good.  
And she can't possibly invite Thorin to Baker Street, because of Mrs Hudson and Sherlock's mess that no one dared to touch, but also because Johanna Watson has lost Bilbo Baggins' skills in the kitchen, and she's better with a gun than with a frying pan.

She hopes Sebastian Moran has lost Thorin Oakenshield's awful sense of direction, else he'll never find the restaurant.  
Unfortunately, he hasn't.

When she finally decides that she'll go, grabs her walking stick and takes a cab, she spends half a hour waiting alone at her table, staring at the rain on the over side of the window.  
For a moment, she fears he won't come.

But he does.

 _God, he's tall.  
_ She feels absurd, but that's the first thing she notices about him. He was tall, as a Dwarf, and he is tall as a human. Taller than Sherlock, actually. Tall and broad-shouldered and build like a rugbyman. But he didn't change much. His dark hair is short, now, but still streaked with silver on the temples, and the beard is thinner. The long nose and high cheekbones and brooding eyebrows are still here, and his eyes, his striking sapphire eyes are the same.

He's beautiful, and it hurts.

When he enters the restaurant, it feels like they're back in time, back to Bag-End, when it was perfect and beautiful. At least, until he opened his mouth.  
And she stands up, supported on her stick, because she is not intimidated anymore, and he better be careful with the things he says.  
No, it's not because seeing him makes her want to give him another chance. Not at all. What a silly idea.

And he notices her, standing in the background of the restaurant, and he stills.  
She flinches despite her will, and her knees weaken, because she knows she has changed. She's not the small, chubby little imp she used to be, even if she has a certain tendency to plumb out in the middle, because the army gave her muscles and too large shoulders. Her hair is short and lighter than Bilbo's, she's got circles under her eyes, and her cheeks are hollowed. And of course, the stick and this thrice cursed limp.

She is Bilbo, and she is not, just as he is Thorin and he is not, but they are still soulmates with a broken bond, and that's the first time they meet.

His gaze makes her feel self-conscious. She doesn't feel pretty and she doesn't feel young.  
Oh, she's thirty-one, and an Army Doctor, for God's sake. Not a silly oblivious maiden blushing under a gorgeous male's stare.  
Even if said male is the bloody soulmate she has cursed almost everyday since she was born.

He strides toward her and she wants nothing but to run far, far away and bury herself somewhere no one will ever see her again. But he stands between her and the only way out, so she doesn't move and waits and prays that her knees won't give up. He is so tall that she has to lift her eyes to meet his gaze, and his eyes are so blue that her heart throbs painfully in her chest. There's so much in these eyes. Pain and sorrow and loneliness and awe and joy and wonder.

 _God, it's you,_ he breathes. _It's really you.  
_ That's certainly not what she was expecting, but she didn't know what she was expecting anyway.  
 _I guess so,_ she says.

He looks a bit...insecure?

They stare at each other for some time, and it's somehow ridiculous.  
 _The name's Johanna Watson,_ she adds. _But I go by John.  
_ _I know_ , he says. _I've been reading your blog for a while, but I would never have guessed that...  
_ A fan.  
 _Gods._  
No, she does not feel proud. Not at all. She has, after all, _hundreds_ of fans.

 _Yeah. On the contrary, there's not much on you on the internet, colonel Moran.  
_ He shakes his head.  
 _Not very gifted with this, I'm afraid,_ he says.

He looks around.  
 _That's a nice place_ , he observes. _Hard to find, though. I lost my way...  
Let me guess,_ she interrupts. _Twice?_

He nods and laugh and oh, that damn, bright, beaming smile.  
She has never thought that Thorin Oakenshield could be cute. Until now. Because he certainly is. That's cute, a huge, scary bloke like him, unable to direct himself. Still, he managed to come back to her. She might start to forgive him, after all.

John points the seat in front of her.  
 _Well,_ she says, _let's make sure you won't get lost again._

 _Thorin bestows her a gift.  
_ _At first, she is genuinely pleased, as well as surprised, and in another situation, it would have been the most wonderful gift she has ever received, and she might as well have thrown her arms around his neck and kiss him on the cheek and perhaps on the lips.  
_ _She doesn't._

 _The mithril shirt shines like a thousand fragments of Arkenstone. It feels like cold water under her finger, and even colder on her skin. I_ _t is way to tight on her hips and chest, and looks more like a wedding gown than an armor, and she feels utterly ridiculous._

I'm a Hobbit, not a warrior.

 _The company is eyeing her behind Thorin's back, and Bofur isn't even jesting. That's what makes her the most ill-at-ease in all this. T_ _horin smiles fondly at her, and he is really striking, in his golden armor adorned with obsidian crows. But his smile can't warm her anymore._

A token of our friendship, _he says.  
_ Friendship.  
 _It leaves a bitter taste in her mouth. Well, at least, she has that. And it feels like that's all she'll ever have from him.  
_ _But she doesn't deserve it, does she? She has already betrayed him and his hard-won frienship.  
_ _And when he'll found out, she'll lose it. Lose_ him.  
A thief and a liar.  
 _The Arkenstone is so heavy in her pocket that she fears it will rip open it and clatter to the ground._ _But it doesn't._

 _Thorin grabs her arm so tightly she fears it might bruise, and leads her to an alcove, out of reach, and for the first time, she's afraid of being alone with him._ _He doesn't make her feel safe anymore._

I am betrayed.  
 _There it is. He knows.  
_ Betrayed _, she repeats slowly, and bile rises in her throat.  
_ The Arkenstone. One of them has taken it. One of them is false.  
 _She swallows nervously.  
_ One of them. _Not her. She might have laugh if she could._

Thief.

Liar.

 _How can he?  
_ _How can he think so lowly of his own kin, his family, and trust her, an outsider? And all she can do is pray that his wrath won't fall on one of them before she corrects her mistake._

 _She tries to reason with him, remind him of his promise, of what she herself has vouched for. But then he starts to sound suspiciously like Smaug, and he snarls and hisses, and she realizes he is far, far gone now. Out of her reach._

I will not part for a single coin. Not one piece of it.  
 _The dragon said exactly the same words, and at this time, Thorin's eyes are gold, not sapphires, and she can't stand it._ _Because this mad Dwarf is so blinded by his own sickness that he chooses to trust the one person who betrayed him. The one he doesn't know is his soulmate, and likely never will._

 _How is she supposed to act now?  
_ _Watch with horror and resignation as he rejects Bard's plea, then goes back to stare at his gold?  
_ _She watches._

 _But that night, she makes a decision. The idea has slowly made is way in her mind, and she knows he will never forgive her for it._  
 _Never._  
 _Ever._  
 _But he'll be safe._

 _Perhaps.  
_  
 _And she'll go back to the Shire, and he'll never hear of her again, and it will be for the better, because as long as she is far away from him, she can't say the words and he can't hear them, and so he won't die._ _She may not be able to save him from himself, but she can at least save him from herself._

 _Later, she'll learn that fate can't be easily tricked._

 _And so she takes the stone and gives it to Bard and Thranduil, Gandalf, at night, like the thief and the liar she is, and she tries to stay deaf to the sound of her slowly breaking heart.  
_ _It doesn't work very well._

 _She comes back to the Mountain, where she still belongs, even for a short time, to enjoy the last moments of her King's trust.  
_ I'm not afraid of Thorin.  
 _That's a lie.  
_ You should be.  
 _She is._

 _A few hours later, Thorin's fingers are wrapped around her throat, and she chokes and desesperatly fights for air and as she can't help but see the Dwarf's teary eyes through her blurred vision, she wonders for the first time in her entire life, should she survive this, how long it will take her to fade._

You... No. Not you. Not you.  
 _The disbelief in his voice has turned to desperation to anger to fury._ _He cries and yells and his hands reach for her neck and there it is. He's going to kill her. And thus he'll live.  
S_ _he doesn't even fight._

Never again will I have dealings with wizards...or Shire rats.  
 _That's the last blow, but that's what hurts the most.  
_ _Never again.  
_ _Never.  
_ _Never.  
_ _Never._

Stop this, it hurts, Thorin, you're hurting me, please…

 _Nothing escapes her bruised throat than a pitiful whisper.  
_ _Maybe Thorin's mark will turn black. Maybe he'll understand. Maybe...  
_ _Black out.  
_ _And then, she's free, and Gandalf's arms are wrapped protectively around her and she sobs and wails in his cloak like a lost child.  
_  
I will have war. _  
_ _She doesn't hear him. She doesn't hear anything anymore and she's blind and deaf to the world because it's like her heart has been ripped out from her chest and left open to bleed._  
Never again.

 _Everything has been wiped out in the blink of an eye._

 _It's all her fault._

 _Her wrist is burning. And she scrunches her eyes shut and_ no, no, no, it's not happening, please, don't make me look, don't...

 _She does, through her tears, when it doesn't burn anymore, and she wants to die. Because what she has now is somehow worse that death._  
 _Worst than_ black.  
 _On her wrist is carved a dull, muddy brown mark.  
_ So, this is the Burglar, _it says._

 _She screams._

They talk. A lot, actually. There is much to tell. Wasted years are usually long years. And they both have matching brown marks on their wrists. Things have to be settled.  
That's not as easy as it seems.

She learns about him.  
Colonel Sebastian Moran.  
Forty three.  
Single.  
Occasional rugby player, just like her.  
Plays the harp. That, at least, hasn't changed.  
Former soldier of her Majesty. Been in Afghanistan, just like her, but left the Army a few months before she enlisted.

 _Discharged_ , he snarls. _Not reformed._  
 _What for?_ she asks.  
 _Honor_ , he answers, and his voice is cold. _One of my fellow soldiers was murdered, and I avenged him. Blew up the bastard's head. They wanted to get rid of me and I just gave them a reason._  
 _Get rid of you?_  
He shrugs.  
 _Too independant for their liking._  
 _And a King,_ she mentally adds, _and therefore used to give orders and not to receive them._

He works as a lawyer now, and is quite wealthy. Obviously.

 _And you, John?_  
It seems difficult for him, to call her _John_. He's been used to _Bilbo_ , in this life and the previous one. Just as it is difficult for her to call him _Sebastian_.  
 _Me?_ she says cautiously. _Everything interesting is on the blog._  
Really, everything. Her life has become significantly boring since Sherlock's fall.  
Thorin, no, _Sebastian_ , frowns and pouts a bit.  
 _The Blog is about Sherlock Holmes,_ he states, and his fingers suddenly brushes hers. _I want to hear about you._

She retreats her hand.  
 _There's something I need to tell you about Sherlock._  
God, it hurts, to speak about him. She almost hasn't said his name in a entire year.  
He lifts a thick, black eyebrow.  
 _Don't freak out,_ please, she warns him, and she takes a deep breath. _He is, was..._  
 _Smaug, I know_ , he finishes for her. _What of it?  
_  
John's a bit flabbergasted, to say the least.  
 _You...you know?  
_ She pauses.  
Of course.  
 _Mycroft-fucking-dragon-number-two-Holmes._

What is surprising is that he doesn't seem bothered by the fact that the creature who stole his home and killed thousands of his kin used to be his soulmate's flatmate and best friend.

He reaches for her hand and presses it gently this time. His thumb slips under her sleeve, strokes her wrist. His own shirt lifts up a bit, revealing a glimpse of dark brown writings.  
She meets his gaze again and they stare at each other.

 _John,_ he says. _I know it might seem a bit early, but I want to restore our friendship._  
Friendship. Again. As it was. Frustrating friendship.  
He doesn't mention the severed bond. Because he's right. Too early. He may be aware of it now, but that doesn't make things easier.  
And in this life, she must admit that they barely know each other.

Sebastian Moran is as much a stranger to John Watson as Thorin Oakenshield was to Bilbo Baggins when he knocked to her door that night in the Shire, an eternity ago.

There are endless matters and unsaid words to be discussed, forgiveness and trust to be earned, an entire relationship to rebuild, and it can't just happen in a blink. But she still has to make it possible.  
 _Okay,_ she simply says.  
 _Okay?_ he repeats. _Just like that?_

He looks so remorseful and guilty, grateful and relieved at the same time. It's cute. But he's right. She's not being logical at all, and even Sherlock would confirm it.  
They've hurt each other, in another life.  
 _Dragon sickness was in his blood_ , the Detective had said, once. _Though, the fact that I used to sleep on that treasure for more than a hundred years certainly didn't improve things._

They aren't completely guilty, as well as they aren't completely innocent. So yes. It's okay to try. At this point, she doesn't care.

She lightly tightens her fingers around his, and she remembers that these long musician fingers have once tightened around her throat.  
 _Friendship._  
It seems a fair bargain. Better than indifference.

 _Forgive me,_ he whispers. _Please._  
John Watson doesn't forgive easily. But there is still a little part of her that is Bilbo, and this part, at least, can be merciful.  
She shakes her head, but her fingers stay were they are, absently stroking his knuckles.  
Not yet.  
But in time, _maybe_.

 _Darkness._

 _Her head is throbbing. There's something warm and sticky on her forehead. Blood. Why can't she see?_  
 _Tired. So, so tired. And cold. Hard rock beneath her._  
 _Did she fell asleep?_

 _The light is too bright through her lashes. The sky is too blue. Dark spots are dancing in her blurred sight. Are these snowflakes? No. Snowflakes are white, aren't they?  
_ _It has stopped snowing. Good. She hates snow. It was snowing when her father died._

 _The shadows in the sky are flying.  
_ _Eagles._  
The Eagles are coming.  
 _Flying, not falling._  
 _Falling._  
 _Fili fell._  
Fili.  
 _Her eyes snaps open._  
 _Fili is_ dead.  
 _Bright, cheerful, golden lion. Dead. Cold, glassy, unseeing blue eyes. He's dead, because he didn't blink when the snowflakes landed on his eyes like white flies._

Oh, Mahal.

 _She wants to retch. She sits. She must have hit her head. It hurts.  
_ _There is no one in sight. Everything is silent. Everything reeks of fear and death._

Thorin.  
 _Where is Thorin?_  
 _Is that him, this dark silhouette, far away on the top of the frozen cliff?_

 _He's falling too._  
 _Why is he falling? Is he tired?_

 _And she stands up on her shaky legs and runs, because she is starting to understand and she doesn't want to, and maybe, if she runs, she'll be faster than her own traitorous mind._

 _Azog's body is lying on the ice, Orcrist buried to the hilt in his chest. Good riddance. But Fili's dead anyway._

 _Why isn't Thorin moving, for Yavanna's sake?_

 _She lets out a strangled sob._  
 _All around him, the snow is crimson dark red, and it's spreading quickly, drawing strange patterns._  
 _He coughs, thrashes a bit against the ground. His eyes opens, and they are clear. Too clear. The golden mist is gone._

Bilbo...  
 _He rasps her name like a prayer and she kneels by his side._  
Don't move. Lie still.

 _Beneath his chest is an open, gaping wound, pulsing like a living thing, soaking with blood the armor and the clothes around it. She presses her little hands on it, but crimson seeps between her fingers and she can't contain the red flow and his life escaping with it._  
 _His blood is hot, but his skin is so, so cold. His hand clutches her sleeve so hard that she fears he might rip it._

I'm glad you're here, he says, _and blood poors out of his mouth and he chokes._  
 _She hushes him like she would do for a weeping child, because he's dying, and he's afraid and she can't, she can't accept it._

I wish to part from you in friendship.  
 _Friendship. Again. How can he still think about that? And he's not parting from her. No way she lets him go._  
No, you... you are not going anywhere, Thorin. You're going to live.

 _She strokes the side of his face, hoping it will sooth the pain. His hand reaches for hers and tightens and she winces because he has some strength left and it might break her fingers._  
I would take back my words and my deeds at the gate. You did what only a true friend would do.  
 _Friend. Friend._  
I don't want to be your friend, Thorin.  
 _How can he be so infuriating, even on his death bed?_

Forgive me. I was too blind to see.  
 _He's been blind to many things, but she doesn't say it._

I am so sorry... that I led you into such peril.  
 _Well, the proper Baggins side of her can certainly complain about that, and there are a couple of things that... But she's half-Took._  
No, I'm... I'm glad to have shared in your perils, Thorin. Each and every one of them. It is far more than any Baggins deserves.  
 _Because she has found her soulmate, and she's about to loose him, and she wouldn't have known him if she hadn't take part in said perils._  
 _That's so unfair._

 _She wants to scream._

Farewell... master burglar. Go back to your books... and your armchair. Plant your trees, watch them grow. If more people... valued home... above gold... this world would be a merrier place.  
 _No, she doesn't. She doesn't want to go back to her books, her armchair. She doesn't want to watch stupid trees. She doesn't._  
 _Not without him._

 _His breath is shallow, his eyes unfocused. His hand's grip on hers loosens, goes limp.  
_ _No. That's not happening. Not now.  
_ _What did she say? Did she say the words? Did she? Does he know?_

No, Thorin, don't you dare, no…

 _She cradles his head, frantic and desperate, as his eyes become unfocused. His breath stills._

Thorin, no, no, no, no, hold on…

 _He can't go. He can't do this. He can't. It's not supposed to end like this. There's always a happy ending, in her stories. Isn't it?_

 _It doesn't matter he threw her out._  
 _It doesn't matter she's hurt and wants to hate him but can't._  
 _It doesn't matter that her bright scarlet mark has turned a ugly brown._  
 _It doesn't matter, because they're together again and the madness is gone._  
 _There is hope. There is always hope._

 _But it's not a story._

 _It's real, and the prince doesn't kiss the princess, doesn't ride with her in the sunset toward their happily ever after. Instead, he coughs blood, and his soul drowns in his eyes, and the foolish little girl is left alone and helpless to cry, with the eagles flying above her head, oblivious and uncaring to her pain._

You see, _she whispers, and something is breaking inside her._ The Eagles, the Eagles, the Eagles are here.  
 _For a moment, the light comes back in his eyes, and they widen, blue and desperate, wet sith tears, and he struggles and it's like he's trying to say something, but only more blood poors out his his mouth._

 _And then he's gone._

Thorin?

 _But he can't hear her anymore._

 _And she weeps and wails and curls into a ball against his side, trying to keep the last remaining warmth in his broken body._  
 _**  
**It hurts._

 _It hurts so much and she remembers her mother's pained expression when the mark on her wrist turned coal black_ _suddenly_ _, and that she had wondered what it felt like. Now she knows._  
 _Emptiness._  
 _Cold._  
 _Grief._  
 _Pain._  
 _Anger._

 _Her tears are hot on her cheeks, as is his blood on her hands, and his skin is cold and he's so beautiful, so peaceful in death._

 _Slowly, she unlaces his vambrace and removes his leather glove. It's not wise. It'll hurt more, or it will dull the pain, but she doesn't care. She needs to know._

 _His mark doesn't shine like gold anymore. At least, he's free of that too. It's as black as night, now, and it feels like he's going to wake up and ripe her heart from her chest and crush it._

The Eagles are here.

 _He has known. He has known, and he has been_ hers _, for a second._

 _She stares at the mark blankly._  
 _Then she throws her head back and laughs, laughs, laughs madly, and she rocks back and forth, tears rolling down her face, her frail body wracked by sobs, and it echoes in the silence._

 _The Eagles aren't there anymore._

They take things slow.  
They aren't really dating. It's more phone calls and discussions around coffee. This sort of stuff.  
Neither of them is a romantic. He has never been, and she stopped being one a long ago.

It lasts for months. They're dancing awkwardly around each other, and she has the slightly annoying impression that they're going nowhere.

 _I grew up with the idea that l would never knew my soulmate_ , he says once.  
They're on a bench in Kensington garden, and the sky is grey and cloudy. It's not spring yet, and there aren't any flowers. Just green.  
 _Do you?_  
He nods.  
 _I was supposed to marry and Iron Hill princess whose soulmate was already dead._  
She feels a pang of jealousy, despite herself, for this random girl who could have had everything she never did. But who hadn't.

 _What happened?_ she asks.  
He sighs.  
 _Smaug._  
She says nothing. They're talking about Sherlock, after all.

About the monster he has been and wasn't anymore.

About the little boy who was craving for love and affection without knowing it, and who killed himself because of people's jealousy and spitefulness.

About her best friend who forgot that he didn't have wings anymore.

About her best friend who did awful things and tried to earn forgiveness, even if he would rather have died than admit it.

About her best friend, who didn't believe in redemption.

 _How was he?_ Sebastian enquires. _Did he really not know about the Solar System?_  
Who? Sherlock? Why does he care, anyway? He has read the blog. The _Hound of the Baskervilles_ is his favourite.

She stands up.  
 _Wanna have a look?_

They take a cab to Baker Street. That's the first time she brings him at home. Mrs Hudson is not there, and she's grateful for it.  
It's dusty, neglected and nothing has moved. Truth be told, she just comes here to sleep and spends her days outside. Without Sherlock, it doesn't feel like home anymore.

Gods. She misses him. To be honest, she misses him a bit less since she met Sebastian, but still.

Sebastians stares at the bullets in the wall, the piles of books, the various and unidentified stuff that looks like torture instruments.  
 _Is that a skull?_ he asks in disbelief.  
She shrugs and chuckles. He's lucky she removed the body parts of the fridge. When Sherlock died, there was a decaying foot between the jam and the eggs.

 _It looks a bit like the mad scientist's lair,_ he observes.  
Yeah. Surely. But Sherlock wasn't mad. He was a genius.  
Sebastian faces her.  
 _You cared for him._  
That's not a question.

 _Want to know why?_ she says, and he nods.  
Well. Nice of him to try, at least, to understand.  
 _You better sit._  
He obeys surprisingly quickly.

John takes a deep breath, clenches her fists.  
 _People were always calling him a freak,_ she snarls, _because he was different. He was lonely and afraid, and you know why? Because he was a genius and the best person I've ever met. And now, he is dead._  
There. She said it. But it's not over.

 _Do you know what it's like, to be called a freak?_ she asks _. To be looked at like a monkey in a zoo because you're different?_  
There it is. Anger rising. Not against Sebastian, of course, because he is not entirely responsible. Anger doesn't always have to be directed at someone.

 _I was called a freak all my childhood, because I had a fucking brown mark, and I didn't even know why._  
She's screaming now. It feels good. Better than all the sessions with Ella, better than Sherlock's silence.  
 _I spent three decades hating you, Thorin Oakenshield, and I didn't even know you existed, she yells, finger poking his chest. And then I met Sherlock, and he made me remember._

Wetness on her cheeks. Is she crying?  
 _Shit,_ she mutters and frantically wipes her eyes.  
He's staring at her, and his face doesn't show anything.  
 _Oh, for God's sake_ , she explodes, _say something!_

 _What colour was it?_ he asks suddenly.  
 _What?_  
 _Your mark,_ he repeats. _What colour was it?_  
 _Red,_ she answers, and the familiar ache comes back again.  
Red for a romantic bond that never was.

 _Why didn't you say anything?_  
She avoids his eyes and turns her back to him.  
She hears him leaving the armchair, feels his hands on her shoulders. He's got such large hands. They're strong. Strong enough to hold her, and strong enough to break her.

 _John, why didn't you say anything?_  
His voice is almost begging. That's wrong. He doesn't beg. He never did.  
 _Because I was afraid,_ she whispers.  
She still is.

He forces her to turn to face him, firmly holding her shoulders, and she smacks his chest with her fist.  
 _Let. Me. Go. Please._  
 _No_ , he says. _I don't think I will. I don't think I ever will._

He looks at her. She looks at him.

Then he grabs her waist and pulls her against him, crashes his mouth on hers and...  
 _Oh._  
There it is.

It's their first kiss, and it's not the kind of kiss Bilbo Baggins, the poor, romantic girl, would have dreamed of. But for John Watson, it's perfect, because they have hurt each other enough to know where they can push each other to the point of pain.  
It is a furious, filthy, bruising kiss, all teeth and tongue, almost punishing. There is nothing tender, nothing gentle between them. Only need and wait and lust and decades of frustration.

 _I need you now,_ he whispers in her ear.  
And she aches for him, she aches so badly as their clothes are nearly torn into shreds and she arches against him like she never did for anyone else. It's like a hurricane and there is nothing left after that, no decency, no sanity, because they are finally bare in front of each other, with their scars and flaws, she is his and he is hers and nothing else matters.

And it still hurts, because they are just John and Sebastian, because what they have now is something that Thorin and Bilbo never had.

 _Say my name,_ he whispers, begs in the crook of her neck, his voice hoarse and desperate. _Say it._  
 _Thorin, please…_

After that, things escaladate rather quickly.

They end up on the couch, that poor, mistreated couch, tangled and sweating, panting and grinning like teenagers. He peppers her face with kisses and she giggles because his beard tickles.  
 _I'm still angry at you, you know,_ she whispers.  
He's not going to escape _that_ unscathed.

 _I don't think so,_ he purrs and nuzzles her neck. _You love me, you see._  
 _No, I don't,_ she retorts and squirms in his arms.  
 _Yes, you do._  
 _No._  
 _Yes._  
 _Okay._

Sebastian kisses the inside of her wrist.  
 _Red suits you_ , he says, following the newly blood-colored mark with the tip of his tongue.  
 _Shut up,_ she barks, and snuggles closer to him.  
She's in serious trouble now.

 _You said you wanted to restore our friendship,_ she reminds him later, after Mrs Hudson comes back earlier than planned, nearly has a heart-attack, and throws them out with a broom. _What does it makes of us then? Sex-friends?_  
He pouts.  
 _What do you think about lovers?_

Well...  
Yes.  
That will do.  
 **  
**Sherlock Holmes as been dead for one year and a half, and for the first time since he jumped from St Bart' roof, she is _fine_.

 **next time, Sherlock comes back!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Oh my god, I can't believe I left you hanging for what...5 months? I'm so, so sorry for the wait :'( hopefully, next chapter won't be this long to come!  
Merry christmas to all of you, my beloved readers, and may the Force be with you, since The Force Awakens was awesome.**

 **This chapter is dedicated to my dear Wynni. I wish all the best for you and your family, dear ;D**

 **English isn't my first language so all the mistakes are mine.**

Chapter 5

Being part of a couple is a situation John isn't accustomed to.  
After all, Bilbo Baggins has remained a spinster, cold and alone in an empty smial and an empty bed, until the end of her days, and if not for Sebastian Moran, John Watson would probably have suffered the same fate.

The brown mark has not helped, of course, but in this life, the rare and men and women she has dated or tried to, have had a certain tendency to flee as fast as they could as soon as they meet Sherlock. As if he had been the Plague itself. But he had been so much more than that. _Smaug, Bane of Middle Earth, Chiefest and Principalest of Calamities._

It makes her sad, to realize that if the detective hadn't die, she and Sebastian couldn't have been. Not because of their old feud, but because living with Sherlock Holmes was like having a child to take care of. A very annoying, invasive, rambuctious child.  
A child who thought himself strong enough to fight against the world, and wasn't. A child she failed to protect from himself and the others.  
She still misses him. The pain is dull and wakes her, sometimes, in the middle of the night, but Sebastian's arms are always around her to sooth her cries.

Waking up in someone else's arms. She's not accustomed to that either.  
She starts to be.  
Not that she complains. She was used to one night stands, empty beds, empty words, empty hearts and grey mornings.

She isn't cold anymore, because Sebastian's embrace is warm and strong. Like being engulfed in a furnace. It can seem paradoxical, but Sherlock, who once was a dragon, fire and death and so much more, was _cold_.  
Not that it bothered her, because they weren't intimate in that way, but still, the more she thinks of it, the more she thinks it's weird.

She doesn't dream of fire anymore, nor does she dream of death. She doesn't dream at all. Perhaps it's because she feels safer than she has ever been.

Trust is easier than she has ever thought.  
The limp lingers, but she almost doesn't use her walking stick anymore, because Sebastian's arms are here to support her and catch her if she falls.

They visit Sherlock's grave together, once. Surprisingly, the idea is _his_ , not _hers_. Maybe he feels guilty, though she can't see why he should be.  
Whatever happened in another life doesn't really matter anymore, does it?  
Or maybe he simply knows that she needs it, because he is her soulmate, the same being split in two, like two pieces of a puzzle, made to complete each other.

His hold on her hand is steady and strong as she stares worldlessly at the tombstone.  
She doesn't cry.  
John Watson is done with crying. She wants to laugh and smile again, because she is happy. Hard-won, bitter happiness build on the ashes of the old sorrow that was sticking to her since she was born, but happiness nonetheless.

They're not perfect.  
They just _are_.  
That's enough for her.

They both have matching red marks, and even if she's not usually someone to parade, it feels strangely good to see people looking at her with envy when they walk together in the streets.  
It's new.  
It's fine.  
It feels right.

She almost wishes that they cross path, when they are wandering through London, arms entwined together, with her former classmates. Or even better, with the boy she has punched. All these little bullies who thought she would always be alone and unwanted.  
 _See?_ she would scream at them. _See?_  
They would be so _pissed_ , and she will laugh. Wouldn't that be glorious?

If she still had been a Hobbit, she would have done that. Dragged Thorin with her to the market for everyone to see, because she would have been so proud to bring back to the Shire that gorgeous Dwarf King from her so _unrespectable_ adventure.  
Even as John Watson, she can still imagine Lobelia Sackville-Baggins' face. _Priceless._ That damn woman was a silver spoon-obsessed _bitch_ , and the official bane of her existence.  
Bilbo was terrified of her. Now, John Watson would probably eat her alive, because she is an _Army Doctor_ , which means that she can break every single bone in her body, while naming them, but all she can do is smirk at the thought, because Lobelia is long, long gone.

The ghosts are still here, but now she can keep them at bay. Sebastian, simply by his presence, told them to go, and they went away.  
He is holding her steady with his hands, and doesn't let her fall. Instead, she fights and win.

He's a fighter too. He always has been.  
His hands are rough and calloused against her skin, used as they are to be wrapped around a weapon. A gun or the hilt of a sword, or herself, what difference ? She is a weapon too. The Army taught her to kill and taught her well. People forget it too easily.  
Sebastian's hands are the new fortress around her mind, and she isn't ready to let it crumble to dust. If she has to fight for him, she will fights. If she has to kill, she will kill.  
He's worth it.

The first person she tells about her newfound relationship is Molly. The young pathologist is delighted and beams a bit too much to be honest.  
She seems to cope with Sherlock's death surprisingly well for someone who used to be head over heels for him. But that's Molly's way. Faking happiness, because she doesn't want anyone to be _worried_ about her.  
Perhaps that's why she get engaged, too. To show people that she is fine. Even if her mark is still blue. His name is _Tom_ , and John isn't sure that she wants to meet him.

Mrs Hudson already knows, so there's no need to tell her anything, but the landlady is slightly in denial. Even if she caught them in a rather compromising position.  
 _Sherlock. Was. Not. My. Boyfriend_ , John repeats slowly, for at least the hundredth time.  
 _Live and let live, that's my motto,_ Mrs Hudson says with a smirk.  
Oh _dear._  
Some things never change.  
The old woman will never admit that she likes Sebastian, but the fact is, she does. Because he is well-behaved, and knows how to make tea, and will not blow up the kitchen while doing so.

Lestrade nearly chokes on his coffee when John tells him. In fact, he doesn't believe her, until he and Sebastian have a meeting which involves beer and football talking.  
 _Men._  
 _Lucky girl_ , he says afterwards, grinning, and claps her on the shoulder.

She doesn't tell Mycroft because he already knows. He always knows everything, even if she has long removed the cameras from Baker Street.

She doesn't tell Harry.  
Or her parents. She doesn't feel the need to. It's not as if they cared, anyway. And it's almost been ten years since they have last spoken.  
Maybe they're glad to be rid of their two failures of daughters.  
It doesn't makes her feel anything anymore. It doesn't even hurt.  
Because she is too _happy_ for that.

The problem, with Sebastian, is that he is not very subtle. He has more tact than Thorin ever had, but still.  
First, he asks her if he wants to move and settle in his flat. She already spends half of her time in there, so it's just another step. She gathers her things, says goodbye to Mrs Hudson and promises to keep in touch, looks one last at Sherlock's things, and shuts the door.  
It doesn't feel like home anymore, but still her heart aches a bit.  
She ignores it.  
Memories can't reach her now.

One day, he asks her out, as he often does, but this time, it is in one of the most luxuous and expensive restaurants in London.  
He is trying, really.  
But she has lived for a while with Sherlock Holmes, the _World Only Consulting Detective_ , and she, too, can deduce things.  
What a wonderful _idiot_.  
Well, at least, she can pretend to be completely oblivious. She owes him that. He's trying, after all. That's cute.

Choosing a fitting dress, however, is not. She has not worn one since high school.  
She asks Molly. She asks Mrs Hudson.  
 _God bless them._  
She ends up with a correct outfit, which makes her feel horribly uncomfortable, but looks fine on her.

 _You're perfect,_ Sebastian says when he sees is. _  
_Well, she has almost tripped on her heels while going down the stairs, and she can't run or stretch her legs in that bloody, expensive dress, but if he thinks she's perfect, everything is. _  
_She has even brushed her hair back and tucked them with a clip. They are long, now. They fall straight to her chin because she has stopped cutting them. Mrs Hudson says it ages never says anything about that, so it must be alright.

The food is perfect, the music is perfect, the wine is perfect, everything is perfect.

Sebastian is perfect too, in his elegant black suit, blue eyes shining under the candle lights, dark beard neatly trimmed, even if he is quite awkward and obviously doesn't know how to bring his subject.  
 _Perfect._

Well, it would be, if the waiter hasn't been as annoying as an obsessed wasp. Can't this guy just go bothering someone else with his ridiculous french accent?  
 _Like a gaze from a crowd of strangers..._  
Sebastian is doing a funny face.  
 _...suddenly one is aware of staring into the face of an old friend._  
Did her boyfriend just pay this guy to declaim french poetry? That's bad taste.

She lifts her eyes to tell him to go away.

The world stops and her heart with it.  
Tears in her eyes.  
Anger.  
Pain.  
Disbelief.  
That's to much.  
It can't be.  
It can't.  
Can't.

 _John?  
_ Sebastian's voice is far, far away from her ringing ears. _  
John? What is it? John?_

The waiter removes his glasses, revealing reptilian blue-green eyes. Eyes she knows too much. Except that this time, they are bright and alive, not glassy, cold and unseeing.  
 _Well, short version_ , he says _. Not. Dead._

John sees _red_.

* * *

 _The ceremony of burial is a nightmare.  
She is there, but she isn't really there and wishes to be far, far away, but she's never far enough. She sees everything through the blurred veil of her tears, and wishes the salt burn her eyes until she can't see anything anymore._

 _There are three inert bodies laid in coffins of stone._ Three. _Not two.  
Kili is dead.  
Sweet Kili with his soft dark eyes and his beaming smile and his almost beardless face. He will never smile again now, never laugh._

 _They look so peaceful like that, as if they were only sleeping.  
Bilbo prays Yavanna and Mahal to let them wake up, let them be fine again. She prays, prays and prays, and her tears roll down her face and burn her skin, but she doesn't care. The Valar never answer, and years later, she will recall it exactly as the very moment she looses faith._

 _Voices are singing in Khuzdul in the background, and she doesn't understand anything. It's like a lullaby, dragging her down to sleep, and she doesn't want it. And she canno't, even of she wanted it, because when she closes her eyes, all she sees is Death, and she dreams of Death when she is asleep and thinks of Death when she is awake._

 _Death._

 _Death._

 _Death._

 _Why didn't Death take her too?  
That's unfair.  
She's dead inside, but her body lives. A living corpse. It would just be another step, wouldn't it?_

 _She wonders why she has not thought of throwing herself of the cliff. She doesn't know. She doesn't know anything anymore. She only knows Death.  
Death who taunts her in the moving shadows of the candlelights, in the mourning song of the Dwarrows, in the still, cold, and pale, so pale faces of the three empty corporal vessels that are about to be laid under the stone, never to see daylight again._

Gold. _  
They are dressed in gold, all three of them, and the Arkenstone is tucked on Thorin's chest, and she wants to rip it off and and shatter it on the ground in thousands of pieces and stomp on it until there is nothing left but sparkly dust.  
And it still won't be enough._

 _The Lady Dis' wailful lament makes her head throb painfully. She is Thorin's living portrait, same sapphire eyes, same midnight hair and sharp feature, and everytime Bilbo looks at her, she wants to scream, and she wants to smash her own skull against the wall, and she wants to claw at her own chest and slash it open and rip her heart out of it.  
Maybe it'll stop hurting.  
Maybe not._

 _She doesn't hear anything anymore. They're probably saying nice things about the Fallen. That they were brave, strong, willful...  
What use is this for?  
It's not as if they could hear it, anyway.  
And it hurts, listening to what they were and not what they are, because _they aren't anymore _. So she doesn't._

 _The world fades around her, but she can't fully erase it, and there is nothing left in the tomb, except for herself and Thorin's still body._  
 _They won't let her touch him._  
 _She has no right and no reason, because no one knows, and her black mark is hidden under her sleeve._  
 _She isn't the only one to wear one, embedded in her skin. Bard does, and the Elven King, too, and maybe they know, and they understand, but their pain is old and hers is new, and she doesn't want their help, or their pity._

 _Tauriel has had one too.  
She has faded quickly after Kili's death. She has been fine, and then, in the blink of an eye, she wasn't anymore. Bilbo has held her hand while she was laying, delirious, on a miserable mattress. Her skin has slowly turned pale and cold, her voice hoarse, her once bright green eyes dull, and her fiery red hair ashen gray.  
She has slowly became a shadow, and then disappeared.  
Just like that._

 _She has been there, and then not, and there has been nothing left of her but Kili's runestone, the same runestone his mother is now clutching in her fingers._

Return to me _, it says.  
_ Never, never, never _, sings the wind against the Mountain's stone._

 _Bilbo doesn't know where Tauriel has gone. Elves do not fade the same way Hobbit do. When her mother faded, there was a body to bury. But it's like the Elf has simply vanished and dissolved in the air.  
Maybe she is dead.  
Or maybe she is still there, a shade, a formless, restless soul, wandering through the Mountain Hall, forever mourning her lost love. Maybe it's her voice Bilbo hears, screaming her pain in the wind.  
But it doesn'y make any difference, isn't it?_

 _Yes, Tauriel is dead, and she died of a broken heart. Leaving Bilbo wondering why she didn't._  
 _Why, indeed._  
 _She should have thrown herself from the frozen cliff. She should have. Or open her wrists with Sting, or impale herself on Orcrist, or...whatever. She should have done that, when she was too deep in her grief to think clear._  
 _Now, it is too late, and she can't, because she is too weak, too much of a coward to take her own life. She's afraid of pain, and she's afraid of Death, and of what is beyond. Afraid that she won't find him there, waiting._

 _Afraid to be alone in the dark._

 _And when they close the stone coffin over Thorin's peaceful gold-crowned face with a sepulchral sound, all the lights are blown off, and she realizes that it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter anymore. Because she already is._

* * *

Angry again.

Well, she has reasons to be. The prick fakes his death, lets her grieve for two agonizingly long years, and comes back expecting to find everything as it was before, as if nothing ever happened.  
No way.  
It doesn't work like that.

Her knuckles hurt. Her heart hurts. Her head hurts. Everything hurts.  
At least, he must be hurting too, because she has probably broken his nose, and he may know nothing of _feelings_ , but he knows _pain_. And she has punched him. _Thrice._

 _Arsehole._

Sebastian is surprisingly calm. In fact, when he raises his voice, it's not about Smaug. It's not about the gold. It's not about the Arkenstone, or Laketown, or Dale, or her mother burnt to ashes in the mere blink of an eye.  
No.  
It's about Sherlock, not the dragon.  
It's about _her._

 _Do you have any idea what you've done to her?_ he snarls furiously, fists clenched.  
He's taller than Sherlock from one or two inches, and the detective has the decency to look slightly guilty and even afraid, massaging his bruised throat under his scarf.

He explains, or at least tries to, and it's like he is diving and diving and diving deep down inside of himself to reach as much as possible of what makes him so infuriating.  
 _Thirteen ways not to die. Japanese wrestling. Washing bags._  
As if she cared. As if it matters. As if it was important.  
She does not want the _how_. She wants the _why._  
Unfortunatly, he seems to think that she doesn't need to hear it. Or doesn't want to tell her. Whatever.

 _Breath, John. Breath._

 _Air._ She needs air. Air, and getting out, and a glass of whiskey. More likely the whole bottle. And Sebastian's arms around her.  
Well.  
He's already there. Not helping, though.

Apparently, he has never liked her new haircut, and never said anything because he didn't know how to tell her.  
 _That_ , she understands.  
He's afraid to hurt her. He's _terrified_ to hurt her. And words can cut deeper than steel, and he knows that well. So he has kept his mouth shut.  
He cares too much. That's the main issue, with him. And hair isn't really a subject that hurt.  
She gently squeezes his hand, and the tension in his body disappear.

What hurts, is that it takes Sherlock to expose that point. Sherlock _bloody_ Holmes.  
 _Smaug._  
 _Smaug_ agreeing with _Thorin Oakenshield_ about a matter as stupid and hopelessly ordinary as a haircut.  
The world has gone definitely mad.

 _Gods._  
The more Sherlock speaks, the more she wants to strangle him with his stupid scarf and throw him back in his stupid grave in which he's likely never been, and bury him so deep that he'll stay dead like he should have been.  
Murderous thoughts are not that uncommon, but hers are really vivid in this instant. Maybe Sherlock can feel them glowering around her, like dark moths drawn to a too bright flame. Doomed to burn. And she really, really feel like she might explode.

Anger is like tidal waves, rising and falling to the rythm of the detective's words.  
How dare he?  
How _dare_ he?  
How...

And then the feeling of betrayal overhelms her, and she sinks her nails into the flesh of her palm and forbids herself to shed the tears that are already gathering in her burning eyes.  
Mycroft has known.  
Molly has known.  
At least _half_ of London's homeless population have known.  
They have known, and they never said anything.  
They have let her down and watched her struggle and drown and crumble and never did the one thing that could have soothed the pain.  
Was it that difficult?  
 _One word. One fucking single word._

She wants to scream. Her throat burns and tastes of ashes. She feels trapped. She needs release. _Now._

 _Why am I the only one who thinks that this is wrong? The only one reacting like a human being?_ she shouts, and according to Sherlock, she's over-reacting.  
Wait.  
 _What?_  
Fine.  
Over-reaction it is, then.

She just snaps.  
 _So you fake your own death and you waltz in 'ere large as bloody life but I'm not supposed to have a problem with that, no, because Sherlock Holmes thinks it's a perfectly okay thing to do?_

She doesn't care if people are watching them. She doesn't care if she's making a public scene.  
Back in the Shire, such a behavious would have been unacceptable, but she's not in the Shire anymore, and if John Watson had been there instead of Bilbo Baggins who has watched her tongue all her life, she would have screamed for all to hear that _Lobelia Sackville-Baggins was a heartless, selfish, greedy bitch_.  
But she had not been John Watson yet. And she's too damaged to keep everything for herself.

Apparently, Sherlock's return is still a secret, and she's very tempted to scream it until there's no one left in London that doesn't know the truth.  
But she doesn't.

She doesn't, but only because he has the nerves to ask for her help to prevent a terrorist attack, and she's too stunned to do anything else than staring at him blankly, listening to Sebastian's nervous laugh without really hearing it.  
 _You have missed this. Admit it. The thrill of the chase, the blood pumping through your veins, just the two of us against the rest of the world..._  
 _Gods, that she did._ It's the worst, isn't it?  
She can't think. Only act.  
She jumps at his throat, grabs his collar, and her forehead collides with his face.

There's blood splattered on her skin, Sherlock's blood, warm and red and sticky, and she angrily wipes it away. Nausea shakes her. It reminds of the _fall._ The sickening sound of his skull shattering on the pavement. Blood and brain leaking on the ground.  
 _Fake._  
All of this was fake.  
She wants to retch.

 _I don't understand,_ Sherlock says.  
No, of course, he doesn't. He never did. That's what makes him different.  
 _I said I'm sorry. Isn't that what you're supposed to do?_  
Not enough, _dear_. Not enough.

She turns his back on him to call a cab. He can go to hell. She doesn't care anymore. She's too tired for that.  
 _Gosh_ , she hears Sebastian say. _You don't know anything about human nature, do you?_  
Tired.  
She wants to sleep. She needs Sebastian's warmth. His steady heartbeat against her ear. The proof that she's alive, and that she's not in Hell, Sherlock's ghost taunting her until madness.

 _Holy shit.  
_ Did she just leave Thorin Oakenshield alone with Smaug? Because they're likely going to slaughter each other, even if she is just a few feet away. Sebastian seems to take the thing surprisingly well until now, but he's the kind of person who can stay still for an awfully long time and then explode.

She swirls on her heels.

The two being she loves most in the world, or rather hates at this instant, are discussing calmly, like two very old friends.  
That looks a bit surreal.  
She can't remember any friendship between them. Quite the opposite, in fact.  
But then again...  
It's because of _her_ , isn't it?  
Sebastian doesn't want to hurt her, and probably neither does Sherlock.

 _Sebastian_ , she calls softly.

She's so exhausted she can't even linger on how unnatural this is. She just want to go. To _flee._ Once again. She'll have to face him later, eventually. Not this time.

 _Can you believe his nerve?_ she asks, bewildered, once she's safely tucked against her soulmate, on the backseat of the cab that drives them away, the lump in her throat softly tightening.  
Sebastian smiles, watching the detective's form getting smaller and smaller by the window. It's more a smirk than a smile, actually.  
 _I like him_ , he says.  
 _What?_  
 _I like him_ , he repeats, eyes returning to the window while he wraps his strong arms around her.

Small drops of rain have started to appear on the glass, shining under the londonian nocturn lights.  
It's beautiful.  
It just looks a bit too much like tears for her liking.

* * *

 _The pale morning sun is warming the Mountain's side when she decides it is time for her to leave. She can't stay, though the others wouldn't mind if she did. But she can't.  
She can't._

 _Living in memories would do her no good. She would drown in it, letting herself sink rather than swim.  
Every stone, every single statue and arch and stair and sculpture in that cursed place bear Thorin engraved in its core, and it's too much for her to handle._

 _Besides, what woud she do in a Mountain, without any valuable reason to acclimate herself to it?_  
 _She's a Hobbit.  
She needs sun, warmth, azure sky above her head, green hills and green grass under her toes, flowers and running rivers.  
Even if the the sun seems tarnished every time she looks at it. Even if the sky looks grey. Even if the grass doesn't seem that soft anymore.  
And isn't that what she has always wanted anyway, throughout all this awfully long journey? To go home? Back to her armchair and her books and her garden and her trees and her west-farthing china?  
Isn't that Thorin's last wish?_

 _So she holds back tears, straps her backpack on her shoulders, baths her reddened eyes in a failed attempt to make them look less puffy, and sneaks outside. She doesn't go to the crypts. Her goodbyes have long been done there, and it would hurt too much._

 _Only old Balin is waiting for her at the gates, as if he had known what she was planning to do. She can't blame him for that. He's already blaming himself too much.  
In the sunlight, he looks wearier, his face more wrinkled, and his beard whiter. It's probably true. They're all older now. As if they had been given all the years the deads will never live._

There is to be a great feast tonight. Songs will be sung, tales will be told, and Thorin Oakenshield will pass into legend.  
 _Feasts, parties, feasts, parties again. That's what has been going on for a few weeks. The Mountain is litteraly shaking with joy and songs and laughs. They've lost a King, alright, and the last direct members of Durin's line, but the Dragon has been slain, and the stronghold of theur ancestors have been recovered. Theses are reasons to celebrate. The mourning times are over, except for a few people who have had a great part in this and are now isolated voices in the cheering crowd._  
 _She finds it unbearable._

A legend _.  
She laughs bitterly.  
She doesn't want him a _legend. _She wants him_ alive _, and_ safe _, and_ happy _. She wants him a_ King _and she wants him a good one.  
Was that too much to ask for ?  
It doesn't even matter if she's not a part of that bright, now forever gone future._

 _Dain will be, and already is, a great king. But it's just not the same. It will never be._

I know that's how you must honor him, but to me, he was never that. He was…to me…he was… _  
And she can't say it. She can't. It's too late for that anyway._

 _She wonders if old Balin knows. Probably. He's got a black mark on his wrist, after all. His soulmate died the day the dragon came, before he even had the chance to meet them. Dwalin told her.  
It's so easy, to have one's heart broken. She wonders how many time the older Dwarf's has been shattered. Dwarrows have such long lifespan. There's so much that can happen.  
She doesn't dare to ask._

 _His eyes are shining with unshed tears, and suddely she can't bear looking at him anymore. Else she might choke and sob and wail and he won't be able to sooth her. No one can.  
Her sorrow is her own, just as his sorrow is his own._

Will you tell the others I said goodbye? _  
His painful smile isn't comforting at all.  
_ You can tell them yourself.

 _They're here, indeed, in line behind her, her dear, uncomplete company. It feels like being amputed. One can still feel the missing limb.  
Her smile is fake, but they deserve at least that.  
_

If any of you are ever passing Bag-End… _  
Of course, they won't. It's a long, long journey, to the Shire. But she's a proper Hobbit lady who never forgets her good manners.  
_...tea is at four. There's plenty of it, you are welcome any time. _  
Her Dwarrows chuckle and bow. Bofur is crying softly. She wants to hug them and make everything better. But she doesn't.  
_ Uh…don't bother knocking. _  
Lame attempt to cheer them a bit, to show that she's fine even if she feels like she's dying inside. But it works._

 _They let her go, and their teary-eyed smiles are the last glimpse she catches of them before walking away toward Gandalf who is waiting for her, sitting on a broken statue, silently blowing smoke rings toward the sky, calm and staring with a blank, meaningless expression. Somehow, she wants to hate him, to display such little emotion, such cold indifference._  
 _But she can't._  
 _He is so old, has lived so many years, so many lives, that he is propably used to see people dying around him, of old age or cold steel. He forged himself an armor that doesn't show anything, and never strips of it. Not even for those he calls friends. They die and fade as everybody else. Perhaps even faster._

Shall we go, then? _he asks.  
She takes a deep breath. She feels strange, as if something like a string or a fishing hook was stitched in her nape, pulling her backward, toward the Mountain, tearing her apart. She takes another step, and the string snaps, ripping half of her soul, and it's not supposed to hurt, but it does._

 _Bilbo Baggins throws herself into the wizard's arms, buries her face in his thick grey robe that smells of Old Toby smoke, of_ home, _and weeps._

 _She weeps on the road, from Dale to Mirkwood and from Mirkwood to Beorn's house and from Beorn's house to Rivendell and from Rivendell to the Shire, and when they reach the Shire, she can't weep anymore. Her eyes and her heart, or what remains of it, are as dry as the deserts of Harad._

 _Gandalf warns her about the Ring. Her pretty, innocent golden Ring. He calls it a Ring of Power, and say it is dangerous.  
_ Oh, is it? _  
_But everything is, Gandalf _, she wants to retort._ The world is dangerous, and so am I. _  
She has managed to destroy everything she had built, after all._

 _Until now, the Ring has proven itself useful. And how in Erù did he find out about it? She has thought she had been careful enough.  
Well.  
Apparently not.  
Suddenly, Gandalf is a very, very annoying person._

You needn't worry about that ring, it fell out of my pocket during the battle. I lost it.  
 _That's what she tells him. End of discussion. She doesn't know why she lies, because the small golden band is safely tucked with her pipe and her last, crumpled leaves of Old Toby, but she does._  
 _Blasted wizard._ _His blue eyes are shining strangely, and of course he doesn't believe her, but he leaves it be._  
You're a very fine person, Miss Baggins, and I'm very fond of you. But you're only quite a little fella in a wide world after all.  
 _Bilbo doesn't want to know what he means, and if she has to feel insulted or not._

Farewell, my friend. May the blessings of the Valar be upon you _, he says, walking back to his horse, staff in hand, leaving her standing in the middle of the road that leads home.  
Bilbo snorts.  
_The blessings of the Valar. _  
He must be kidding. The Valar don't bless anyone. And he's a fool if he thinks that they'll watch over her as he requests. The truth is, they just don't care._

 _Bilbo used to pray._  
 _She has prayed when her father has went in the winter, and her father has never came back alive._  
 _She has prayed when her mother had started to fade, and her mother has faded._  
 _She has prayed when Thorin has started to show the first signs of goldsickness, and Thorin has gone mad._  
 _She has prayed before the battle, the battle they call of the Five Armies, and Thorin, Fili and Kili have died._

Give them back, take me instead, _she has prayed upon their cooling corpses.  
No answer._

 _Bilbo Baggins has lost faith when the stone coffin has covered Thorin's pale face.  
She doesn't pray anymore. And if someone asks why, she'll tell the truth. Assumed choice. Because people deserve to know. And those who will disagree can go to Morgoth.  
She hasn't tried to pray Morgoth, and maybe she should have. Maybe he would have listened. And the green hills of the Shire would still be green, and the sky would still be blue, and the sun would still be bright, and the world wouldn't be that dull, ashen grey._

* * *

It takes her a few weeks, short meetings that involves screaming and yelling, mostly from her part, a kidnapping and a failed terrorist attack to forgive Sherlock. Or a least, tell him that she forgives him. Forgiving isn't that difficult, but admitting it is humiliating.  
And Sebastian isn't helpful, during these few weeks of bitter incertitude, with his more or less awkwards attempts to make things better between her and her now former best friend.

He has no valuable reasons to, after all.  
Dwarrows are a resentful kin, and Sebastian may not be a Dwarf anymore, but he's certainly as stubborn as he used to be.  
His behaviour is quite the opposite of what she had expected, and less than subtle, but he's trying. She can't say that she minds it.  
He's smart enough to understand that the past is the past, and that what is done is done, and Sherlock can't harm him anymore.

 _Are you gonna see him again?_  
He's sitting cross-legged on the bed, and she's cutting her hair, and he flinches every time the scissors slice a new strands. Dwarrows aren't overly fond of scissors, razors, or any other device that involves hair cutting.  
His own hair is short. Apparently, it has been a decision from his youth, public the display of his shame, his punishment for having hurt her in their previous life, as if the brown mark wasn't enough. Since amends have been made between them, he's letting them grow long again, and they curl on his forehead and around his ears.  
She thinks it's a bit extreme, but well. Long or short, she likes his silken black strands anyway. As long as he doesn't shave himself bald.

 _No,_ she sighs. _I'm going to work._  
 _Oh. And after work, are you gonna see him again?  
_ She rolls her eyes.

 _I dunno,_ he says, letting himself fall into the pillows. _Six months of bristly kisses for me, and then her Nibs turns up ..._  
 _I don't do this for Sherlock Holmes,_ she snarls, and a new blond strand falls.  
 _You should put that on a T-shirt!  
_ She looks at him in the mirror. His blue eyes are laughing. The prick is poking fun at her. _  
Shut up_ , she says.

The last strand is cut. She considers her handwork. It's a bit messy, but it will do. Long hair doesn't really suit her anyway.  
 _Or what?_ Sebastian asks cheekily, lazily stretching his arms above his head. His shirt is slightly open on his wide chest, revealing a dark patch of very attractive chesthair.  
 _Or I'll marry you._  
It takes her a few seconds to realize the implication of what she has just said.

Sebastian grins.  
 _Mahal, I love you_ , he exhales, and pulls her toward him to show her exactly how much.  
 _Still_ , he says between breathless kisses, _I think you should see him._

* * *

 _The Shire doesn't feels like home anymore. Because home is where the heart is, and her heart is buried far away beneath a mountain.  
That doesn't mean she'll let the vultures plunder her smial.  
How _dare _they?_

 _She's not dead, presumed or otherwise. Well, technically. She doesn't feel like her heart is beating anymore, but she still breathes, and Bag-End is_ hers _, and there is no way that she has helped thirteen Dwarrows to reclaim their home only to be despossessed of hers._

 _As expected, Lobelia is behind this mess.  
_ Who are you? _she asks.  
In her green dress and ridiculous hat, she looks like an ugly toad. Thorin would have laughed.  
_You know perfectly who I am, Lobelia Sackville-Baggins _, Bilbo snarls, and yanks back her precious silver spoons.  
She suddenly wishes Lobelia had been an Orc. No one would have protested of she had gutted her like a fish with Sting. She deserves at least a good punch in the face, and she'll get it, but later.  
Bag-End first._

 _She produces the contract, silently cursing the living hell that are buraucracy and juridical problems, and she can feel the crowd's disappointment when she is officially declared undeceased.  
Curse them.  
Curse them _all. _  
The only one that looks happy is Hamfast. Bless him._

 _But no one protests, because she looks dangerous, with her wild hair and exotic clothes, her skinny frame, her hollowed cheeks and her bright little elvish sword.  
_ My reputation is definitely ruined _, she internally sighs.  
It's not as if she cared._

Who is this person you pledged your service to? _the auctioner asks._ Thorin Oakenshield? _  
Hearing his name hurts.  
Who was he, indeed? Soulmate? King? Lover? He's never really be any of thoses things. No. He was just...  
Bilbo Baggins closes her eyes, and her shoulders slumps down in defeat.  
_He…he was my friend.

* * *

As it turns out, Sebastian is right.  
She cannot do as if nothing had changed.  
The fact that she attacks a patient at work and probably traumatizes him for life, thinking it it Sherlock in disguise, is certainly not helping.  
And she discovers quite abruptly that not being involved with Sherlock anymore doesn't mean being spared the collateral damages of his cases.

She almost dies, _twice_ in the same week. It's a bit overhelming.

The first time, she's walking in the street, and then someone sticks a needle in the side of her neck.  
 _Shit_ , she thinks, and blacks out.

When she awakes, she _burns._

She burns, or starts to burn, and she doesn't understand how. She chokes on ashes and smoke in the dark, unable to see the flames, unable to move, unable to escape.  
Somewhere, children are laughing.  
Panic is rising, crushing her, flooding her sense like poison.  
She's going to die, and die the most horrible fathomable way.

It reminds her of the forges of Erebor, of running for what had seemed an eternity through dark corridors, fear curling on itself like a snake inside her stomach. She remembers roars in the darkness, unbearable heat in her back, and the metallic smell of molten gold.

But this time, it won't be like Bofur once said.  
 _Flash of light, searing pain, and then, poof, you're nothing more than a pile of ash._  
This time, the flames are no dragon fire, and will devour her slowly, and she'll feel herself crumbling to charred bones.  
This time, she can't run.  
Can't shield herself.  
Can't hide.  
Can't crawl.  
Can't escape.  
And the last thing she'll hear will be the children laughing. It feels like they are mocking her. Though, probably not.

She tries to scream, but smoke burns her throat, fills her lungs, and the only thing that escapes her is a pitiful whimper.  
She tries to move, but it feels like her limbs are made of stone and her brain is swimming in fog. Her neck hurts. What the hell was in that blasted needle?

The laughs turns to screams.  
Or not.  
Through the creaking and hissing of the flames and the heavy drumming of her heartbeat, she's not sure.

 _John!  
_ Someone's screaming her name. Far, far, far away. Someone. Or maybe two. Are they burning too? _  
John!  
_ John. _John._ That's her name, and that's all what will remain of her when it's over, when she's consumed and burn and melted in the pyre.  
Hopefully Sherlock won't drop the funeral urn and scatter its content, _herself,_ on the floor.

She wants to laugh, and wonder why she does, because it's definitely not the moment. Must be the drug, still flooding in her veins, making her drowsy.  
 _JOHN!  
_ She closes her eyes and lets herself drift. Perhaps, if she gives into the drug, she won't feel it. She doesn't want to. She doesn't. She can't. She...

Cold air hisses on her skin, so cold it hurts and she almost misses the deadly heat.  
A litany of _John, John, John, you're okay safe, John, John, love, John._  
Warm, big calloused hands cradling her head, and still the children laughing.

Everything is blurred, and the only thing that's clear is Sebastian's tear-filled blue eyes hovering toward her, and the stary sky above his shaggy head.  
And then Sherlock's shadow obstructs the sky, and she frowns in annoyance.  
 _Move_ , she wants to say, but she coughs instead, pain erupting in her lungs and in her throat.

Relief washes over her and it's too much and she scrunches her eyes shut and cries, face buried in Sebastian's chest. He rocks her like a weeping child, Sherlock awkwardly standing behind him.  
The children that were laughing aren't laughing anymore. They stare at them, eyes wide with terror and mouths hanging open.  
Silently.

Sebastian picks her up, bridal style, and calls for a cab.

Sherlock doesn't follow. Behind the former Dwarf's shoulder, she can see his dark silhouette in front of the pyre.  
 _Guy Fawkes._  
It's Guy Fawkes night, how could she forget?  
And Sherlock watches it burn, and she wants to scream.

Sebastian gives her a shower, carefully washes her face that is grey from ashes and dirt and sweat and holds her tight, that night, his huge body wrapped around hers, and she somehow manages to fall asleep.  
She dreams of fire, and wakes up screaming, but he's there and sooths her, and she begs him to never let her go.  
 _Never,_ he vows.

Three days later, she's about to die again, and Sebastian isn't there. There's only Sherlock, and he can't save them. Not this time.

Later, she apologizes.

The words are ripped from her lungs, rushed, scorching her tongue, because she's terrified, she thinks she's going to die in that empty wagon, blown up in a single second with the Parliament, that she'll never see Sebastian again, and that he will not even have her ashes to mourn on.  
And because Sherlock is begging for it, eyes wet with tears, and it's disturbing. Maybe he's afraid to die too, for real this time.  
Who wouldn't be?

He's changed, since he came back. He's less reckless. Shows signs that he cares. He brought Molly on a case. Maybe he is even planning on a more regular basis, but she's engaged. To an idiot, according to Sebastian and the most common opinion, but that doesn't really change anything.

No wonder Sherlock is trying so much to earn John's trust back.

So she forgives, because she's afraid it's too late for that.

Of course, it's a trap.  
The bomb isn't going to explode, they aren't going to die, and Sherlock is a manipulative bitch. But she's somehow relieved.  
She wouldn't have said it otherwise, stubborn as she is.

Things go far better after that. She slaps him for scaring her to death, but in the end it's alright. That's not something he hasn't done before.

The responsible for the failed bombing is arrested. Lord Coward. That's his name. Fitting.  
She doesn't get to punch him in the face, and in the end, that's the only thing she regrets. He has somehow given her the occasion to fix the mess in her life, after all. She should probably thank him. Doesn't mean she will.

Sebastian and Sherlock haven't killed each other yet, and they have saved her together. Because they care.  
For _her_.  
 _The thief and the liar._  
Except that she isn't just _that_ anymore.

Maybe she can have both of them in her life without going mad.

She'll see.

 **So, two or three more chapters to go, and then hiatus until season 4. I might write something for the Special as well...**


End file.
